A Purveyor of Antiquities and Oddities
by Carlos Goodyear
Summary: A stream of consciousnesses homage to the best (IMHO) horror writer of all time, Howard P. Lovecraft


\- and now for some old-school.

This story (?) was written at an intermittent glacial pace over several months for my personal entertainment (can't stand daytime TV), and to satisfy a nostalgic desire to emulate a beloved author, Howard P. Lovecraft, whose work I enjoyed immensely in my dimly remembered youth (around the time of the Big Bang).

In all honesty, cross my heart and hope to die, I kept going because I was curious to see how this stream-of-consciousness project would end - if it ever did.

Submitted for your approval -

# # #

Story: A Purveyor of Antiquities and Oddities:

Location -

FBI Headquarters

935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C.

Time - The Present (4:14pm EST)

Place - Third floor, conference room #2.

Meeting Principals -

FBI Director and the Heads of the Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence Divisions

Supportive / Information Gathering roles -

Heads of Information Technology Management, Laboratory, and Critical Response Group

The grey-haired man staring down the length of an immense mahogany conference table is about as fuming mad as a government bureaucrat can be. The two slightly younger men seated silently to his right and left look about the same.

"Are you telling us what I 'think' you just said, Mrs. Brown?"

The disheveled and harried looking middle-aged woman standing in front of a wall-sized monitor lowers her computer remote control and replies with a steady, but nearly inaudible, "Yes sir."

"A Washington, DC wide imminent nuclear threat lockdown, and a full strategic forces alert, was initiated because of a couple faulty sensor and computer glitches? Did I get that right?"

Looking down reflexively at her seated and statue-still colleagues in the Information Technologies and Science Division for non-forthcoming moral support, the head of the FBI's prestigious Critical Response Team turns her attention from the monitor.

She'd come to hate, both on professional and purely personal level, the miles-long meandering track of flashing circular nuclear warning symbols that ended only feet from the White House main gates, "That's about the gist of it, Director Comey."

"And this shit storm got rolling when you, without clearance or proper authorization, took it up yourself, along with those two, to contact the White House and the Pentagon in the name of my office with your 'high confidence' immediate response required Intel?"

"Yes sir."

"The president is not happy."

Scrapping together the last few remaining shreds of her willpower, Mrs. Brown lowers her head and silently returns to her seat. After sitting down again between her two silent compatriots, she hesitantly lifts her eyes to meet Director Donner's gaze and says, "Nor am I, sir. None of us are."

Clinching his teeth in near homicidal rage, Director Comey stares back and responds barely moving his lips, "Personally, I couldn't care less how any of you feel. Your combined gross incompetence has triggered the start of an international incident that will, in all certainty, embarrass the office of the presidency, the current party in power, and every American citizen for generations to come. And what's worse - me!

It's only a matter of time before the media learns why secret service agents bum-rushed the president, quite literally, in the middle of a televised Rose Garden speech before several major heads of state, down to the White House underground shelter; leaving the entire world twisting in the wind without a word of explanation for nearly four hours.

I doubt if your 'happiness' with matter much in the grand scheme of things when the present state of pandemonium finally dies down out there. Don't you agree?"

"Yes sir."

"Excellent, it's nice to hear we're all on the same page. Director Comey replies in a neutral tone so bland it almost hides the sarcasm in what he says next. "So now, while we all still have jobs, could you please repeat your rundown of this day's events starting from the 9:35 am mark? Barebones only, cut out the cover-you-ass crap this time. I'm not in the mood."

After straightening the hastily typed Top Secret papers scattered next to the laptop in front of her seat, Mrs. Brown begins to recite a synopsis of what had unquestionably become the worst day of her career in government.

She was wrong.

It would get worse.

"At 9:35am a radiological sensor hidden in a lamppost located near the off ramp of Arlington Memorial Bridge -"

Before she can finish the sentence, Director Comey looks down from the blinking warning symbols displayed on the monitor and interrupts midsentence, "Tell me, aren't there other radiation sensors scattered along the length of that bridge?"

"That's correct, sir. There's a half dozen evenly spaced all along both sides of the Arlington Memorial, the Theodore Roosevelt and Francis Scott Key, too."

"Can you explain how he managed to travel undetected all the way across from the George Washington Highway to Constitutional Avenue without being detected?"

"We can't. The primary NBC computer grid crashed almost immediately after sensor GW6R detected a mobile bomb-grade gamma ray source. Two backup networks covering D.C.'s radiation, chemical, and biological agent warning systems also went offline, for no plausible reasons, when the subject walked past the second, and then third, sensor along his initial route.

The track and timeline on the monitor behind me is nothing more than a best-guess. After manually inputting all the data we could gather from field reports and security camera video logs, our IT people created this map to illustrate the subject's most likely course over the span of the next four hours - give or take fifteen minutes and a hundred yards."

"He didn't miss much, did he?"

"No Director, he didn't. It's almost like he was taking a nuclear device on a grand walking tour of the Capital; a drunken one. As you can see, there's little rhyme or reason for any path he took.

A regular tourist might wader from one monument to another to some degree, but most tend to minimize the walking effort by traveling the shortest distance that will maximize the number of places to be visited without wasting time doubling-back time and time again."

"Do we know if he went inside any of the buildings or enclosed monuments?"

"We're still reviewing the taped surveillance footage, sir. Picking him out of this weekend's near-record crowd of visitors will take time; thus far we have no images proving he ever stepped off a sidewalk or pathway lugging that large briefcase of his."

"Did he communicate or interact with anyone that we know of?" inquires the stone-faced man to the director's right."

"As we reported privately to Director Comey before your arrival to this meeting, Mr. Stein, we have numerous firsthand reports of the subject suddenly changing direction to talk with other pedestrians; both civilian and government employees.

A few of these meetings appear to have been arranged in advance. We will know more when our agents finish interviewing those we managed to track down. There's nothing significant to report as yet."

"I'm not asking for a polished report. You must have some idea what he was doing."

"Street peddling."

Breaking the lengthy silence that follows her terse response, the equally pokerfaced man wearing a finely tailored, but non-descript, black suit seated to the director's left asks, "Can you please elaborate on that statement by giving us a few examples? We might still have a few more minutes before we're all hauled before a Congressional Grand Hearing and shipped off to a Federal prison."

Looking through the stack of papers once more, she chooses several and asks, "Are there aren't any objections, could I to utilize the same list the interrogation team is using?"

Director Domey's sole response is a snappish and very dangerous sounding, "Get - on - with - it!"

At - at 9:55 am, a high definition CCTV camera recorded the subject approaching and conversing with an unidentified elderly wheelchair-bound man wearing a US Army Vietnam-era uniform jacket. Their interaction lasts approximately nine minutes at the intersection of Henry Bacon Drive and Constitution Avenue.

At the end of their conversation the subject accepts a small ornately carved white sphere. In exchange for this object the subject tenders a bright metallic purple and gold heart-shaped medal attached to a faded blue or purple ribbon he took out of his briefcase -".

Interrupting once more, the man to the director's right, Mr. North, asks, "Do you have this individual in custody?"

"No sir, he disappeared. We have uninterrupted video of the man turning his battery-powered wheelchair around and joining the crowd entering the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Two security cameras assigned to the memorial exit ramp don't have a single image of him ever leaving."

"Any eyewitnesses?" asks the Director, his voice beginning to show increasing signs of the stress he is experiencing.

"Several tourists visiting the memorial recall someone fitting his description reading names on The Wall and sobbing - no exactly an uncommon event.

One witness leaving a bouquet of flowers for his MIA father vaguely recalls an elderly white male wearing a 75 TH Special Forces Airborne Rangers shoulder patch holding something purple in one hand and saluting the wall with the other, but has no memory whatsoever of the man beyond that act."

"Could he have walked out and left the wheelchair behind?"

"Agents scoured the area and found nothing, sir. After all the security video feeds were examined, the count of wheelchairs entering and exiting this monument was found to be short by one."

Letting his anger explode visibly to the surface for the first time, Director Comey, "People don't disappear into thin air, let alone take a damned wheelchair when they go!"

With the tone of someone hoping the Earth would swallow them whole to escape their current predicament, Mrs. Brown replies, "I - we - have no explanation."

"Keep going. And clear that damned screen. All those flashing orange icons are giving me a migraine!"

With a few taps of her keyboard, the blinking circular warning symbols disappear leaving a live high resolution satellite image of the entire Washington, DC area on the monitor behind her. Struggling to keep her hands from trembling, Mrs. Brown begins to read the next of the three pages she's holding.

"At 10:35 a park service camera counting Lincoln Memorial visitors filmed the subject traveling in the direction of the Korean War Monument. He is accompanied by three elderly Asian men with long beards wearing white robes and cone-shaped head coverings. The eldest, and shortest of the three, is holding an approximately six inch long bone or ivory rod-shaped object wrapped in nearly transparent cloth, possibly silk.

After a few minutes of intense conversation, and odd gestures, the subject waves them off. Looking extremely disappointed, the three men bow and all parties go their separate ways."

"Those robes are covered in fancy gold embroidery. Has the country of origin been identified?"

"We've hit a dead end there. Our expert in Oriental history claims the dragon-things are vaguely similar to artwork created during first century BC Han dynasty in China, but none of the other symbols match any known culture, extinct or otherwise."

"Did anything else happen?'

"Yes Director. Before the trio could move more than twenty feet away, the subject calls out and waves his hand. Rushing back they appear surprised, and more than a little apprehensive, when he opens his briefcase and extracts what appears to be a shiny metal box the size of a large eyeglass case.

Taking great care not to touch the object he is holding directly, the eldest drops the unknown object inside the box and hands over the cloth in exchange.

Smiling broadly, the three men clasp their hands as if in prayer and bow repeatedly before turning once more and walking rapidly out of camera range in possession of both items. The subject keeps moving along his original course towards the Korean Memorial."

"Let me guess, those three disappeared, too?"

"Not immediately, sir. But I've just received an update over the interdepartmental secure server."

"Don't keep us in suspense, Mrs. Brown."

"Ah - yes, sir. Approximately twenty minutes after the original DC-wide find-and-detain alert was expanded to include them at 11:05 am, three men matching their profiles were spotted getting into a Falton Taxi Cab vehicle outside the Federal Reserve building.

Two security guards wearing level II ballistic armor confronted the trio with weapons drawn and attempted to take possession of the object the oldest looking one was carrying."

"So, was it a weapon?"

"We don't know. Both guards haven't been interviewed yet. They still haven't awoken from the anesthesia used during their emergency room treatment and surgery for broken bones, concussions, and severe bruising at Providence Hospital."

"Those three little guys beat up two armed guards wearing forty pounds of riot gear?!"

"No, no -it was just the one, the one with the longest white beard. One handed, without releasing his grip on the object he's holding in the other, he disarms one guard and tosses him clear across the street like a rag doll. The second guard is likewise grabbed and flung halfway up the Federal Reserve's marble steps."

"What action did the other guard take while his partner was being attacked? Did he discharge his weapon?"

"Yes sir." Mrs. Brown replies anticipating with a deep sense of dread what the most likely follow-up question will be.

"And the result was -?"

"Sergeant Vasquez fired three nine millimeter hollow-point rounds at point blank range into the chest of Corporal Luis' assailant. The attack slowed momentarily but did not stop. They subsequently returned to the taxi and departed due North in the direction of 23rd street. We are continuing the search for additional video surveillance records."

"How is this possible?!"

"We - we're still collating data. From his movements alone, our combat experts on staff doubt the 'elderly' appearance was anything other than a total deception.

They believe the man who attacked Sergeant Vasquez and Corporal Luis displayed the skills akin to those of a martial arts master, and was likely wearing some kind of advanced ultra-thin bullet-proof vest or armor under those robes.

A high alert all-station bulletin to find the taxi and detain the passengers has been fruitless thus far. Falton denies owning any taxi operating in vicinity of the Federal Reserve today, or using the invalid license plate number the guards reported before leaving their posts."

"Do we have eye-witness reports on this incident?"

"Yes sir, a large number of tourists watched the entire event from start to end. And a good number of them started filming from the moment the two guards ran out of the building shouting for the three robed men to halt. It's all over YouTube by now."

"Okay, do this. Tell our agents in the media to say the guards were participating in the filming of a training video, and keep me informed as to their medical status. And pull that video off the net for good measure. That should buy us some time to figure out this mess."

Turning his attention away from Mrs. Brown who's typing furiously on her laptop, Director Comey glances towards the tight-lipped figure seated to his left and asks, "Aren't most of the security personnel currently assigned to the Federal Reserve ex-members of your fast-reaction team?"

Nodding silently in the affirmative, the still unnamed individual asks in neutral tone, "Do you mind if I take my leave? I won't be gone more than a couple minutes."

"No problem. I - we - can all use a little break."

With another small nod and a mumbled, "Thank you", the man slides his chair back and stands up.

Spinning in place he turns and quickly leaves the room. The door lock has barely clicked closed behind him before the door, the wall in which it is mounted, and the pictures hanging upon it, rattle violently from a single sheetrock busting blow.

True to his word the door reopens two minutes later and the same man, clutching his rapidly reddening right hand, returns to his seat and resumes his dispassionate examination of the monitor on the far wall.

"Feeling better, Nick?"

Without turning he head, the man now known by the name 'Nick' replies, "I'm good" and waits silently for Director Comey's questioning of Mrs. Brown to continue.

"When and where was the subject observed next?"

"The subject had a verbal altercation at 11:15am with a female pedestrian roughly midway between the Lincoln and Korean Memorial. It was witnessed in part by an off duty police officer, a Corporal Sally Pennell, who mentioned the incident when she logged into her desk computer at 12:01pm.

Keywords contained therein caused her report to be red flagged and a copy was sent to our intercept office via the NSA's Net-Alert system."

"Do we know who the other person was?"

"We contacted Officer Pennell's precinct Captain and requested a full report. Going by the officer's description of the food services uniform the woman was wearing, and the direction she took leaving the scene, two of our agents tracked down a Ms. Lu Han Win.

Ms. Win is a recent immigrant from China working at Jenny's Asian Fusion as a waitress. She confirmed having had heated words with the subject and still seemed upset about the encounter."

"Did the subject say or do something in the nature of a hate-crime?"

"It's still unclear exactly he was trying to do. Initially, Ms. Win was rather reticent to divulge the nature her discomfort, but it seems he attempted to trade a bass-colored key for her engagement ring.

Already upset that the groom-to-be had cancelled their imminent wedding to court Ms. Win's best friend that very morning, she slapped the subject followed by several elaborate curses in three Mandarin dialects before resuming her walk to work."

"He wanted to trade a key for her engagement ring?" Director Coney asks with a tone of puzzlement creeping into his voice. "Is he some kind of nut job, Mrs. Brown?"

"That's always a possibility, I suppose, but we have no evidence to support that conclusion. The arresting officers who picked him up outside the White House report he was always courteous and calm; despite almost getting turned into a smear on the sidewalk by a secret service agent stationed outside the gates.

And he remained that way while being handcuffed and belted into the back of their patrol car. As you know, that act alone frequently sends unstable personalities into a fit of belligerent activity. Instead, he spent the entire ride back to the officers' station quietly examining their vehicle and gear asking odd questions."

"Like what?"

After pressing several keys on her Laptop, Mrs. Brown begins to read:

"How sad, what killed the woman who died back here? Wow, do you know the kind of person who used your gun before it was assigned to you? There's something seriously wrong with that equipment belt, have you checked it recently? These handcuffs don't belong to you; did you pick them up by mistake or steal -"

Still gently kneading his swollen fist, the man to the Director's left interrupts, "Big deal, so he's a hyper vigilant nutcase. I've run into several perps suffering from Sherlock Holmes syndrome. It's only a matter of time before he blows a fuse and grabs an axe."

"That possibility was likewise expressed by Doctor Overland, our resident psychologist, Mr. Stein. He claims a full psyche evaluation might take weeks, and even longer before appropriate medication or treatment started. Pressing time constraints preclude our traveling down that road at this junction. For now, we're keeping that option in reserve."

"How's it going down there? The interrogation has been in progress for almost two hours. Is he talking?"

"That's the problem - he won't shut up. To quote the head of the interrogative team, Detective Lance Donner, "It's like trying to get straight answers out of a carnival barker on crack!"

"Has there been any progress identifying him?"

Mrs. Brown glances down at her computer screen and sighs gently, "Nothing as yet, Mr. Stein. His prints were uploaded to RISC from the arresting officers' onboard fingerprint scanner. There were several partial hits, but all proved negative when double-checked.

The Repository for Individuals of Special Concern system is still trying to match its biometric database to the subject's face, voice, and DNA sample. With any luck we might have something within the hour - wait, correction on that."

"What's going on? Did something come in?" Director Donner asks pointing at Mrs. Brown's laptop.

"An update to the RISC search just arrived. The DNA sample taken during the subject's booking is unusable due to multiple source contamination. RISC can't even attempt an ID search until a clean genetic profile is inputted into the system. Facial and voice recognition protocols are still ongoing."

"Damn lazy techs," Stein yells out with deep contempt in his tone, "how hard can it be stick a cotton swab in someone's mouth?! What they do, drop it on the floor?!"

"Unlikely sir, but the lab stopped counting when the ID kit found genetic markers for several dozen distinct individuals, and many more indicators that aren't remotely human or even organic."

"I was right! They did drop it on the floor! The taxpayers are gonna get a lab bill to identify everyone, and everything, that ever passed through this fuckin' building! Do you expect me to -?"

"That's enough, Nick!" Director Comey interrupts raising his voice to a near full-throated shout. "Fighting amongst ourselves won't get us anywhere! Okay, anyone, do we even have a name to work with yet?"

Staring woodenly at her computer screen, Mrs. Brown responds to the question with, "Mr. John Smith".

Keeping his growing anger in check by interlacing the fingers of both hands together in a tight painful embrace, Director Comey stares back and asks, "Seriously? The best interrogator we've ever had can't get me anything better than - John Smith?!"

"He actually insists on being referred to as 'Mr. John Smith'. He goes into a fugue state if the honorific is dropped. About the least he'll accept is 'Mr. Smith'. Until something new comes in, that's all we have."

"What about his possessions?"

Those have proven to a dead end. Other than a bizarre alligator skin briefcase filled with junk, and a wristwatch that belongs in a museum, the blue business suit he wore was stolen from a K-Mart in Virginia within the last twelve hours.

We didn't find as much as a bubblegum wrapper in his pockets, let alone a wallet with any form of identification, authentic or not. Frankly, the likelihood of back-tracking his identify through any of these items is practically zero."

"How do you know the suit was stolen?"

"The anti-theft device pinned inside the left sleeve has a serial number and is still active. The suit, along with absolutely everything else he was wearing, is equally brand new and likely stolen at the same time.

We sent field agents to the store. They examined all the trash receptacles in the garment areas and found no used clothing in the subject's size range.

K-Mart's inventory retention team reviewed their security tapes and door alarm logs. No images of him going back several days were found.

An ATM attending to a customer photographed an individual fitting his description leaving the shopping mall, fully clothed, at seven thirty-four last night. Unfortunately, he was too far away for the low quality image to be conclusive. We're expanding our efforts to include other potential surveillance systems in the area. It might take several days."

Despite the gravity of the situation, Director Comey can't resist replying in a brusque, but slightly amused tone.

"So he - somehow - swaggers into a K-Mart - buck naked - and marches out fully clothed unseen despite dozens of store employees, scores of customers, and who knows how many video cameras. Do you really expect me to believe all that?"

"It's Virginia."

"Go on -"

Sir, the State Department and CIA both insist you authorize the deployment of 'extraordinary interrogation methods'. They're threatening to take their demands straight to the president within the hour if you don't give them proof Washington is free from danger."

"Screw 'em."

"How do you want me to reply?" Mrs. Brown asks with both hands hovering over her laptop's keyboard.

"They want an answer; I'll give them an answer.

Before I'll even consider authorizing that course of action, I want signed hardcopy documents from the CIA and State Department describing in exacting detail what 'extraordinary interrogation methods' mean, and who specifically over there is making this request couriered to my office.

I don't trust any those back stabbers. At the first hint of a Congressional inquiry, they'll wipe their hands clean and throw the FBI to the wolves if we water board an innocent American citizen."

"Do I quote you on that, Director?

"Did you transcribe everything I just said, Mrs. Brown?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. Send with urgent priority immediate confirmation requested."

"Done.'

"Let's keep going before the President fires me or I quit. And it's almost time for the next progress report from downstairs."

Shuffling her pile of papers once more, Mrs. Brown selects the topmost and begins to read, "At 11:39am a tourist taking pictures near the Holocaust

Memorial spotted the subject acting suspiciously.

As she filmed the surrounding area while waiting her turn to enter the memorial, she happened to notice someone scratching around in the dirt beneath some trees to the left of the main entrance. She was surprised when he suddenly raced across a sidewalk adjacent to the wooded area only to stop suddenly besides a nearby brick wall. Moments later she observed him bend down and lift a large red object from the ground.

Following the 'If you see something, say something' advice TSA has been promulgating on mass media since 9/11, she entered the memorial to report him. By the time she returned with a security guard he was gone and -"

"Where is this video?" Director Comey asks interrupting what Mrs. Brown was going to say next.

"A Mrs. Jackie Octal was interviewed from 12:40pm to 1:05 pm at an offsite location and her Smartphone confiscated. No further useable information was obtained and she was released. Apologies were tendered for the 'accident' that deleted everything related to the subject's activities, and a new memory card containing her vacation photos was made available.

Photo-analysis of the original SD card's contents is now complete. All data relevant to this case have been deemed authentic and should be available on secure-net prime at this time."

"Show me." Director Comey changes his line of sight from Mrs. Brown's face to the monitor behind her.

As half of the screen fills with high-definition images and video of the subject's activities, Director Comey sighs and remarks "Well, the witness wasn't exaggerating. Isn't he kinda old to be playing in the dirt?"

"The on-site investigative team found five shallow finger-size depressions in a yard-wide roughly circular pattern the subject clearly tried to erase - images number 7, 8, and 10. They also found what appears to be approximately twelve ounces of sand and granulated limestone in the center of this same pattern - images number 11, 12, and 13.

This substance may have some connection to a missing brick that was once located twenty-nine feet five inches above ground level - images number 14 and 15. Lab results should be available within the hour."

"He vandalized the Holocaust Memorial?" Director Comey asks in a tone of voice made up of equal parts disbelief and ridicule. "Whatever happened to Skinheads just spray painting a swastika and calling it a day?"

"We have, as yet, no evidence linking the subject to any subversive group or radical organization. Nor do we have any proof that his odd activities on the ground are related in any way to how the brick was removed. A close examination of the cavity found no residue of the original mortar, and the adjacent bricks are undamaged."

"Whether he did it or not, there must be some trace of a ladder." The still unnamed man to the director's right asks the next obvious question.

"No sir. Due to the current drought sprinklers around the building go off several times a day to keep the lawn and treed areas green. If a ladder long enough to reach that height had been used recently, our people would have found some trace evidence other than the subject's muddy footprints among the shrubbery or upon the cement walkway beneath the void where the brick was removed; they did not.

On the off chance a rope was used to rappel downwards, the locked hatch granting access to the roof was thoroughly examined. No evidence was found to indicate it had been opened since it was last used four months ago by an authorized maintenance crew.

Until something new is discovered, it looks like the brick just happened to fall out of the wall while the subject was in the area, and he took it for reasons yet to be determined."

"You think this situation is funny?"

"No! No - nothing like that, Mr. North. I'm just at my wits end trying to figure this out." Mrs. Brown replies in a rush.

"Welcome to the club." The man now known as Mr. North remarks in a tone lacking even a dust speck size amount of humor.

After a brief pause, Mr. North continues in a more conversational tone, "And this missing brick was found in his procession when he was taken into custody?"

"That is correct, sir. If you look inside your red briefing folder, you will find an exhaustive list of the items found within his briefcase. What significance this odd collection of items might have has yet to be ascertained."

Mr. Stein drops his rigid gaze from the monitor screen and asks, "Anything dangerous?"

"We can't see how, sir. The case and its contents have been x-rayed and cat scanned: Nothing. Chemical tests: Nothing. Radiation: Nothing. Active biological agents: Nothing.

All the contents were photographed and checked against the FBI, and Interpol, database of stolen property and missing artwork: Nothing. Frankly, I've seen far better merchandize at a flea market. The word junk comes readily to mind."

"What about the radiation source, anything new on that?"

"We're at a standstill there, sir. Except for a battered old Rolex wristwatch with a radium dial, absolutely nothing else he was wearing or carrying display even slightly above normal background levels.

Since lab tests can't find even a trace of any radiological materials or detectable byproducts, there's practically no possibility he could've been in direct contact or hidden something of that nature before being apprehended."

"Are you sure?" Director Comey breaks in with a tone of voice dripping with distrust.

For the first time since the meeting began, the silent man to Mrs. Brown's right, the head of the FBI's lab, enters the conversation.

"There's absolutely no doubt. He'd need a fair sized van to move around enough shielding to contain a leaking nuclear core large enough to give off the reading those malfunctioning sensors detected. Otherwise he, and anyone unfortunate to have spent more than a few minutes near him, would've received a lethal dose."

"What if it were something far smaller? Could he have been transporting a suitcase-nuke? Or a dirty bomb, Doctor Samuels?"

"That's possible, I suppose, but the Russians are adamant that none of the former 'hypothetical' devices are missing from their inventory, and the Pentagon just hangs up the phone when we ask.

A less sophistically manufactured latter device of the required size, would, if it leaked to such a degree, cover him with enough radioactive debris to make everything he wore or carried a health hazard for the next few dozen millennia.

In addition, an amateurishly crafted dirty bomb displaying such high readings would be, by necessity, something on par with a small U-Haul trailer. The subject was never seen or filmed carrying more than a single item, and that briefcase is so crammed full of rubbish there simply isn't enough room to hold more than a pound or two of C4."

"A simple 'no' would have sufficed, Doctor Samuels."

"Understood Director, sorry."

Frustrated to the core of his being, Director Comey pushes his chair back and stands with a look of total resolve chiseled into his features. After taking a few seconds to stare-down everyone on the far side of the table, he rests both closed fists upon the conference table and begins to speak in tone that leaves no room for misinterpretation.

"If you three don't want to be fitted for prison jumpsuits in the next five minutes, I suggest you come up with something I can tell the president right now - damn it! Didn't I tell you to get rid of that icon, Mrs. Brown?!"

"I'm not doing it! The primary alert system kicked in again!"

No sooner than the first flashing warning symbol reappears, it is joined by a second, and then a third identical computer icon. In a few seconds the count jumps into the dozens, with the rate of their exponentially increasing numbers showing no signs of slowing.

Director Comey quickly walks across the room and stands within arms-reach of the monitor.

"Talk to me! This can't be real. Have our systems been hacked with some kind of computer virus?"

"Give me a moment; I'm bringing up the operation log -"

Whatever Mrs. Brown was going to say next is interrupted as electrical power fails and the sounds of crashing cars and blood curdling screams defeat the third floor conference room's expensive sound proofing.

Rushing across the suddenly darkened room to the window in mass, they stand in shocked silence watching through swiftly raised blinds as uncountable indistinct shadows race in hot pursuit of screaming people fleeing from every building in sight.

Many don't get far.

With swiftness that defies imagination; individual members of the running crowds are approached, pounced upon, and engulfed. The swirling inky-black mass almost immediately divides and coalesces into two identical separate entities. One quickly rejoins the search for new victims, the other spins momentarily in place before making a beeline towards the nearest human.

Director Comey is the first to recover.

"Stein! North! Barricade the door!"

Both men turn as one from the window and leap into action. Without a single word spoken they upturn the heavy table and drag it towards the door. The immediate task complete, they each draw large military-style automatic pistols from shoulder holsters with practiced efficiency and, with their backs towards the other people in the room, stand at the ready.

Director Comey also reaches into his jacket, but instead of a weapon he removes a cell phone. After punching in a long alphanumeric sequence of keystrokes known to less than a handful of people in the country, he begins to speak.

"This is FBI Director James Comey. Operation Spider Hole is in effect. No! This is for real! Authorization code Alpha Tango Lima Zulu Oscar. Confirmation code nine, six, six, five, two, six. Get the president and the football into the bunker. Wait for further instructions from the - hello? What was that noise? Are you still there?"

There is no response over the open line, nor would it have mattered. He wouldn't have heard it over the shriek of enormous ebony-hued claw-tipped tentacles breaking into the room and crushing a massive slab of polished wood to splinters, and the eardrum numbing explosions of high caliber rounds going off inside a confined space.

# # #

One hour twenty minutes and thirty-four seconds prior -

"- so there I was, tired, bored, and totally pissed off. I mean, come on, the customer can't be right all the time! I'd traveled halfway to the middle of nowhere and back to pick up this crazy Arab's order, and he couldn't stop writing in that damned book long enough to pay me?

What was I supposed to do with all the virgin goat parchment he so urgently ordered? Virgin goats don't come cheap, you know; let alone all that reeking red ink. My schedule was already -"

Over the course of two decades of hard work, Detective Lance Donner had climbed the law enforcement ladder from lowly rookie beat cop to the most highly regarded hostage negotiator slash interrogation specialist in the District of Columbia.

With a well-earned reputation for getting results where others failed, and the FBI's number one go-to guy when the chips were down, he'd entered the interrogation room accompanied by two uniformed officers, and a single aide, totally confident in his skills. This job would be a piece of cake.

Under normal circumstances his objective was pretty straightforward and consisted of just two parts: obtain information a prosecutor could use in court and, if possible, a signed full confession. Using every trick in the book short of rubber hoses and brass knuckles, his success rate in this regard was the stuff of police academy legends. Today's subject was nothing, in his mind, than another rung on his way to a precinct captain's paycheck.

Nothing had gone right since the start.

Doesn't he ever shut the fuck up?! thought Detective Donner, along with all the other police officers present in the room, as a simple question put before the orange jump-suited man seated across the small metal table triggers yet another endless romp down memory lane.

So far the answer to that shared mental question is a resounding: NO!

"- shot to shit! Crazy customers are always a risk in my business. One minute they're promising the Moon for something or other, the next they're complaining about the littlest insignificant thing. If Alhazred hadn't such a good customer in the past, I would've told him to shove my invoice -

Donner's urge to shoot the human magpie sitting across the table was growing by the second. Luckily, for the subject, no one in the room was armed. By long standing law enforcement protocol and safety mandates, carrying weapons of any kind was absolutely forbidden during an interrogation.

All for the good and definitely appropriate today; after more than an hour of non-stop stream-of-consciousness chatter, there wasn't a single cop in the room who didn't want to tie the lanky perp to a stake and use him for target practice.

Midway through the latest interminable question-initiated monologue, Donner looks away just in time to see Detective Susan Kelly pull down gently upon her right earlobe.

Nodding affirmatively to the unvoiced, and unexpected, request by the youngest member of his team to jump into the interrogation, he watches with interest as the self-professed computer whiz kid tries to gain the subject's attention.

"I totally agree, Mr. Smith. This Alhazred fellow should be ashamed of himself. He has no right to treat someone like you so poorly in your - ah line of business. And what exactly would that be again?"

The torrent of words cuts off mid sentence, and with the sing-song pitch of an oft repeated phrase, the handcuffed man sitting on a cheap metal folding chair gives his shortest and most direct response since entering the room: "up his - I told you already! Didn't you hear me?

I'm a purveyor of antiquities and oddities. Buy, sell, or trade! You want it, we'll get it! Special orders our specialty! Let's make a deal!"

"That's absolutely fascinating, Mr. Smith!" Kelly replies eager to use the subject's favored topic of conversation - himself - as a less direct means to garner useful information.

Besides, it's not every day she had the opportunity to prove her worth to an organization run by old-school male political appointees and career law enforcement officers.

To be perfectly honest, Kelly's private assessment of her purported male superiors as a group was far simpler: the old and moldy low testosterone club.

"Speaking of being treated poorly, would you like something for your face? Those injuries look painful."

And indeed they did.

A nearly swollen-shut black eye, the right, four deep fingernail scratches to an inflamed blow-bruised check, the left, a missing incisor, upper right jaw, and numerous assorted scrapes made the talkative middle age-ish Caucasian-ish perp appear to have been a losing participant in a mixed martial arts fight.

His image in the huge one-way mirror inset into the wall behind Detective Kelly - its true purpose in the conference size room couldn't be more obvious if it had a flashing neon sign above it - was nothing if not cringe worthy to the squeamish.

Expect for a rapid examination, and even quicker wound disinfection by a police emergency medical response technician, little else had been done to repair the damage in the haste to start the interrogation.

After pointing an index finger from both handcuffed hands at his bruised face, Smith replies with a small negative wave of his head and begins to talk gathering steam with each new word, "This is nothing. I could tell you stories about some of my shopping expeditions that'd keep you up all -"

"I can't wait to hear all about it, Mr. Smith, -"

An exasperated, and totally unprofessional, low collective groan from Kelly's side of the table almost derails her train of thought, " - but could you please tell me more about this Mr. Alhazred first? Clearly he had no call to disrespect a person of your caliber in such a base manner. If you don't mind, please take a moment of your valuable time to tell me his first name."

Kelly was closing on her third semester of internet night courses in law with a minor in psychology. If her current IT desk gig didn't pan out, a career segue towards paralegal would be nice plan B.

In all honesty, there was little difference in buttering-up a prospective law office client with flowery language, or sweet-talking info out of a low-life thug with street lingo. The first job simply had a higher class of criminal and paid better.

Case in point: A little ego stroking, and a sincere sounding request to 'tell me more' from a drop-dead gorgeous blond haired and blue eyed young woman - Susan only lied to perps and her superiors when needed, never herself - was likely all she'd need to get this interrogation rolling. And, more significantly to the bottom line, earn some valuable evaluation time brownie-points with her boss. Chalk one up for Psych 101.

After half a minute looking up in silence as if flipping through old memories, or possibly just counting ceiling tiles, the subject tenders a single word response: "Abdul."

In far less time than that, the college freshman intern working on the other side of the mirror downloads a list of possible references for the name 'Abdul Alhazred' to Kelly's Google Glass wearable computer screen. The vast majority are variations of the following excerpts from Wikipedia:

Abdul Alhazred, or the Mad Arab, is a fictional character created by the horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. The term "Mad Arab" in reference to Alhazred is always capitalized and used in the manner of an official title such as another person would be called "Prince" or "Sir" and the term can actually be used in lieu of Alhazred's name as a synonym.

Abdul Alhazred is not an Arabic name. The more proper Arabic form might be Abd al-Hazred or simply Abdul Hazred, although these are still anomalous, as

Hazred is not one of the 99 Names of God.

According to Lovecraft's "History of the Necronomicon" (written 1927, first published 1938), Alhazred was: [A] mad poet of Sanaá, in Yemen, who is said to have flourished during the period of the Ommiade caliphs, circa 700 A.D. He visited the ruins of Babylon and the subterranean secrets of Memphis and spent ten years alone in the great southern desert of Arabia - the Roba el Khaliyeh or "Empty Space" of the ancients - and "Dahna" or "Crimson" desert of the modern Arabs, which is held to be inhabited by protective evil spirits and monsters of death.

Of this desert many strange and unbelievable marvels are told by those who pretend to have penetrated it. In his last years Alhazred dwelt in Damascus. In 730, while still living in Damascus, Alhazred supposedly authored in Arabic a book of ultimate evil, al Azif, which would later become known as the Necronomicon.

The Necronomicon is a fictional grimoire appearing in stories by horror H.P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first mentioned in Lovecraft's 1924 short story "The Hound, written in 1922, though its purported author, the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred, had been quoted a year earlier in Lovecraft's "The Nameless City". Among other things, the work contains an account of the Old Ones, their history, and the means for summoning them.

Throughout the weird fiction of H.P. Lovecraft the term "Old Ones" is employed in various contexts. His first mention of the Old Ones appears in "The Call of Cthulu" (1926), where he uses the term in reference to a group of primordial beings entombed in the mythical city of R'lyeh. At one point in the story, Inspector John Legrasse of the New Orleans police department raids a cult ritual gathering, capturing several of its members:

They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky. Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea; but their dead bodies had told their secrets in dreams to the first men, who formed a cult which had never died.

He got you good, Suzy girl! But two can play this game!

Keeping her thoughts to herself, Kelly decides to continue humoring the subject in hopes he will trip over his tongue before her boss loses patience and resumes control. As a semi-permanent member of his team for nearly four years, but the only female, she couldn't let any chance to shine go to waste.

"He sounds like an absolutely horrid person, Mr. Smith. You know, I love and collect books. I even do a little writing on the side."

For the first time, the perpetual smile vanishes from the subject's features and deep emotion alters his generally placid, and extremely monotonous, tone

of voice, "Don't even think about taking up a career as an author. Trust me, you will die bitter and broke."

"Thanks for the advice, Mr. Smith. I will keep it in mind. But getting back to Mr. Alhazred, could you tell me where he works; I'd hate to have to deal with someone like him no matter where life leads me."

Expecting him to keep the literary con job going by naming some vague inaccessible war torn area of the Middle East with an unpronounceable name, she is surprised to hear, "Cellar Stories Book Store in Providence, Rhode Island.

It's a lovely and very busy used book store. Abdul does exceptional work repairing and rebinding valuable antique books when he isn't preoccupied with his own literary projects. Keep in mind he has a habit of moving around like something is chasing him. He's probably long gone by now."

Before the words 'he's probably long gone by now' finish leaving his mouth, the monitor screen covering Kelly's right eye begins to scroll another message.

Cellar Stories Book Store, RI. 111 Mathewson St. Providence, Rhode Island 02903, telephone (401) 521-2665. Name, location, phone number, and business license valid; submitting high priority request for employee data to IRS and NSA.

Response expected within - - - SWEET JESUS! Get out here, Detective Kelly! You've got to see this - now!

After expressing the agreed-upon signal to indicate something important had occurred - - - chin tapping with two left hand fingers - Donner nods and takes over again while Kelly stands and leisurely leaves the room.

Closing the door behind her, she opens her mouth to express her ire at being interrupted but everything except for the name 'Tina' dies in her throat.

The young woman just mentioned is staring at a computer monitor atop a metal desk nearly overflowing with Revlon makeup items, a pile of computer science text books, an Apple II iPad, a Samsung Galaxy S5 Smartphone, a Nintendo DS video game, and a neatly arranged herd of My Little Pony action figures.

Without a word in reply to her name, she lifts a hand from the keyboard and waves a painstakingly manicured fingernail at the screen with a look of utter disgust distorting her youthful features.

With good reason.

As both women gaze in silence, a seemingly endless flood of high resolution close-up photographs, and short segments of high quality video, fill several open windows upon the screen with unspeakable images.

From every conceivable angle, the photographer's lens fills the screens with severed limbs, assorted internal organs, unrecognizable chunks of mutilated flesh, and bright red gore dripping off or pooling upon every surface.

The forensic photographer recording the crime scene occasionally, and apparently unintentionally, also captures the revulsion-struck faces of several disposable white-overall-wearing CSI personnel; none of which show the slightest inclination towards moving from the battered doorframe in which they are standing.

Everything the camera lens sees is quite literally bathed in the freshly drawn lifeblood of a half dozen people. People whose battered and wide-eyed decapitated heads now rest atop a folding card table circling, and facing inwards, towards the tattered blood-spattered remains of a large ebony hued tool-leathered book.

The room itself wasn't spared in the slightest.

Ceiling, walls, and floor are marred with innumerable deep gouges and impact craters. Much like the human remains, what's left of the sparsely furnished room looks like a convention of insane chainsaw and sledgehammer wielding madmen had spent their rage upon anything they could reach.

And the precise arrangement of severed heads was nothing if not proof positive they'd enjoyed the final outcome immensely.

"Turn it off, Tina. I - we - have seen enough."

A trembling fingertip taps a key and the monitor goes into screen saver mode. A spinning Federal Bureau of Investigation shield swipes away the flow of disturbing images, but does nothing to expunge their impact on the two women.

After several deep calming breaths, Kelly asks, "Where is this coming from?"

"Detective Donner gave me access to a temporary pass code. He instructed me to monitor server traffic and let him know if anything possibly relevant to the interrogation came in. I think this qualifies. Could you tell him? I really don't want to go anywhere near that creepy guy in there."

"Tell him what?"

'You're asking me? My mom is a secretary and data-entry specialist. She said I could earn two easy college credits working part time here this summer. No one said I'd have to deal with stuff like - that." Tina replies while waving a shaking hand at the slowly spinning disk.

"Turn it back on."

Clearly reluctant in the extreme to follow that order, Tina replies "Do I have too?"

"Okay, do this first. Press and hold the alt key. Good. Now go ahead and press the control and END keys at the same time."

"Done, what is all that supposed to do?"

"It's a hot-key special text-only multi-source data download mode. No pictures. No sound. Go ahead, hit the space bar."

The monitor flickers and a dark green background covered with scrolling lines of white text fills the screen.

"Who's writing all this?"

After a minute or two scanning through several pages of tightly packed, and often misspelled, law enforcement and forensic jargon, Kelly answers, "It's not mandatory, but lots of the younger investigators upload their notes via a secure server and a speech-to-text smart-phone program. Yes, there's an app for that.

CSI personnel also use it to fill out field reports, rather than forgetting something important on the trip back to the lab. It saves time, too. They all get off work earlier - there! Is that the address you saw?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"Go ahead and press F4, Tina. That will return the computer to normal. Quickly, now close all the open windows and go to Google Earth. Let's see where and what 139 Mathewson St., Providence, Rhode Island - good. Now go to street view. Hotel Providence? All that went down in a hotel room; on a holiday with people all around? How? Is everyone in that building stone deaf?"

Tina manipulates the mouse while Kelly is speaking. After several failed attempts due to trembling fingers, she finally manages to drag a bright yellow line between Hotel Providence and the red top-shaped marker she'd placed atop the Cellar book store earlier. The two buildings share frontage on the same street and are separated by a little less than a hundred and fifty two feet.

"Just turning on the measuring feature caused the system to bring up that in-progress crime scene live stream. It must have something to do with the pass code your boss gave me."

Kelly's sole response is a shaken - "That's enough! Detective Donner has to see this."

Looking through the one-way mirror for the first time since her departure from the interrogation room, Kelly is taken aback when her eyes lock with those of the subject. Even knowing how impossible it is for him to see her, she can't avoid the belief the barely recognizable smile on his injured face is directed solely at her.

Still looking pale and ill at ease, Tina spins her chair away from the computer desk and asks, "What - what do you want me to do?"

"Do you want to go home?"

"You think I wanna be all alone until Mom gets off work after seeing - that?!"

After a moment of thought, Kelly takes pity on a young college student who can't be more than seventeen, "How about you go down to the cafeteria until your mother picks you up? Otherwise, have something to drink and come back upstairs in ten. Detective Donner and I should be done with your station. Just keep off any live-feeds until further notice, okay?"

"No duh!" Without questioning a single word, something that no teenager is capable of doing under less than absolutely dire circumstances, Tina swiftly rises from her swivel chair and, after grabbing as many of her plastic equine-shaped toys as two hands can hold, leaves the room at a near jogging pace.

Alone at last, Kelly closes her eyes and tries to wipe away the nightmarish images bouncing around behind her eyelids. She doesn't even come close. Getting to sleep tonight would be anything but easy.

After making a mental note to stock up on over-the-counter sleeping pills on the way home, she begins to formulate the story she'll need to get Donner out of the interrogation room. The worst thing she could do is alert the subject something he was possibly involved with had occurred.

After coughing lightly several times to clear her throat, Kelly leans down over the desk and triggers the intercom. Her cadence, tone, and wording are a masterpiece of profession decorum and deception.

"Sorry to interrupt, Detective Donner. There's a call from your wife on line two."

Donner's response is just as formal, "I'm busy. Can it wait?"

"Sara says it's real important. Should I tell her to call back later?"

"No, I'll take it." Looking apologetically at the two uniformed male officers providing security, he comments matter-of-factly, "She probably ran out of gas shopping again. You know how that goes guys."

As he exits the room the two policemen chuckle lightly amongst themselves. He, on the other hand, is doing neither. Donner's wife had died in a small private plane crash sixteen years prior. A fact no one involved in today's interrogation, other than Kelly, knew. Only something of incredible urgency could cause Kelly to invoke this late wife's memory.

Closing the door behind him, Donner crosses the few steps that separate it from the computer workstation. Without a word expressed between them, Kelly inputs her password and logs into the system. Within moments the same images, videos, and text she'd seen before begin to replay in their entirety.

A second viewing does absolutely nothing to lessen their impact. Glad to have skipped lunch, she endures in silence until Donner finds video clips of severed human heads being dropped into transparent Ziploc plastic evidence bags more than he can stomach.

"That's enough. Turn it off."

Frozen into near-paralysis by the horrifying imagery, Kelly is slow to respond.

Donner repeats his request with greater emphasis, and volume, only seconds later, "TURN THAT DAMNED THING OFF!"

Taking no apparent notice, or offence, at being yelled at, Kelly manipulates the mouse and all active windows snaps shut. After swallowing deeply to moisten her parched mouth and throat, she has even more bad news to give her boss, "Tina saw most of this."

"Crap! Doesn't her mother work -?"

"Harriet Lister. Fifth floor, room five oh twelve, secretarial pool and general clerical."

"Please give her a call; I'll be up there before she clocks out to apologize. If I hadn't been in such a hurry to start the interrogation, I'd never give a temp that pass code. I'm gonna have to report this mess to internal affairs."

Any positive feelings he'd had about today's case were pretty much gone by this point.

What about Smith? How do you believe he's involved?" Kelly asks in a near whisper not trusting her voice at normal volume after a second remote-viewing of the crime scene. Knowing the sleeping pills she meant to purchase would be grossly inadequate for the task, a quick trip to a liquor store was definitely on the schedule before bedtime tonight.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out. What do we have on this 'Abdul Alhazred', Kelly?"

"Mr. Talkative is trying to be funny. The 'MAD ARAB' Abdul Alhazred is a character straight out of ancient H.P. Lovecraft fantasy horror fiction. And I'm talking really old - he wrote all kinds of crazy stuff almost a century ago. It's full of primeval alien creatures from other dimensions, or outer space, messing around on Earth since the dawn of time.

Some are supposed to still be living deep underground, or underwater, just waiting to return some day to take over again with their magical powers or super science. Just being near them is enough, according to Lovecraft, to drive humans insane.

One of the worst is a God-like being called Cthulu who commands an unstoppable army of fish people. Supposedly he, she, or it, will one day awaken and rise from the deepest part of the ocean to resume dominion over the planet - that's about it, crazy stuff."

Donner, the consummate interrogator, can't help but ask, "And you know all about this, how?"

"I read all his books in college. All my friends did, too. They are still very popular."

"Why am I not surprised?"

Donner sighs and looks down at an image Kelly had just expanded to full screen size. Barely in focus is a Smartphone-taken photo of an open ledger displaying signatures, and lengths of stay, dating back several days. The name 'Providence Hotel' printed in one inch tall bold Gothic typeset atop each page.

Kelly clicks and drags the mouse to highlight an ornate signature that spills over three separate lines next to the number 412.

"What are all those scribbles suppose to mean? Is that even a language?"

"I'm running it through our optical character reader and translator - here we go again! It's a mishmash of Sumerian, Akkadian, and Ancient Arabic. It boils down to, 'The MAD ARAB, junior was here', more or less."

"It still isn't funny, nor is it proof Islamic terrorists are involved. That crime scene is 'excessive' even for those nutcases, but their modus operandi is known to peg the sick side of the meter on occasion. A fake identity that blatant could also mean we're dealing with a warped homegrown book worm."

Kelly turns away and stares through the one-way mirror once more, "Someone like, that guy?"

"That guy and what freakin' army you mean. He's involved somehow, but you saw the look of terror frozen on those faces. I'm nowhere close to figuring when, why, or even how it happened, but there's no question it went down damned quick; I'm talking seconds.

Can you see that scrawny guy taking out six people without anyone in the hotel hearing a thing? And then, after they've all been filleted, he still has the strength to carpet bomb the bodies into bite-size chunks before trashing the room for shit n' giggles?"

She responds with the most logical explanation, "Could this whole thing be a setup; something like an elaborate mob hit staged to send a clear message to a rival drug-running organization? Is it possible the victims were killed somewhere else, and their remains dumped here long after the room was vandalized for maximum effect?"

"Rhode Island isn't Mexico and all points south. Most of their local gang-bangers couldn't organize a picnic. And I can't see an army marching through the Providence Hotel lugging a truckload of five gallon buckets, and a wheelbarrow brimming with wrecking tools, without some nosy busybody complaining.

Speaking of which, is there anything coming in from the day and night clerk? Have the officers-on-scene sent anything in yet?"

Kelly initiates a word search and several windows pop into existence on the monitor screen. Finding a couple containing information relevant to Donner's question, she begins to read; "Initial interview of Providence Hotel day clerk by Sergeant James Wallace - Mr. Horace Iglesias clocked in at 6:45am: Nothing of importance mentioned by departing night clerk, Mrs. Carmen Hernandez, or the five member nightshift cleaning staff.

Between 7:20am and 8:40 am he checked in three guests with reservations, and one without. All accounted for and currently being interviewed by RIPD. After new arrivals were processed, Mr. Iglesias subsequently phoned three rooms with their requested wakeup calls, and reminded each of the hotel's check out time: 10am.

All rooms answered except for number 412. As Mr. Iglesias prepared to deliver the requested 9:05am wakeup call in person to the one day / one evening renter of this room, the desk phone rang. Sounding upset at having been disturbed, the occupant of room 312 was calling to complain about being awoken by a rain of red fluid leaking though her bedroom ceiling from room 412.

Mr. Iglesias apologized and personally escorted the occupant of room 312 to an empty room nearby, room 316, and returned to his post. He then called maintenance to rectify what he suspected was a bathroom plumbing problem.

Accompanied by the hotel's plumber - Mr. Larry Castro, age 46, a twelve year Providence Hotel employee, last seen screaming as he ran from the building - he left his post a few minutes later to investigate.

They soon discovered a stream of blood and finely shredded flesh flowing from underneath the door leading to room 412. The door was visibly damaged from within and no one answered when he knocked. Mr. Iglesias called 911 at 9:19 am. Police car RI34 was dispatched at 9:29am. Officer Robert -"

"That's enough. Please, forward a copy to my office."

"What now?"

Muttering softly, 'today was going so well', Donner uses his faint reflection in the one-way mirror to help straighten his tie, and rake the fingers of his right hand through his thinning hair. Satisfied his cool and collected uber professional image is intact, he answers Kelly's question, "Get his stuff."

Nodding in response, she leaves the room in route to the seized property storage room on the first floor.

As the door closes behind her, Donner moves quickly towards the double-drawer government-gray metal file cabinet standing besides the desk, and the gun safe hidden within. Without a single wasted motion, he spins the dial and extracts his backup pistol from the other weapons stack inside.

After jacking the slide to chamber a round, Donner restores the palm-size pistol to the empty holster hidden within his jacket. The deed done, he relocks the safe before returning to the spot he once occupied. Waiting patiently for Kelly's return, his eyes never stray far from the handcuffed man on the other side of the mirror.

Getting caught with a gun inside the interrogation room would be sufficient to guarantee apocalyptic damage to his service record. The reprimands surely to come from his superiors would severely cripple his professional advancement at best, or cause his immediate dismissal at worst. He didn't care.

From the very beginning of his career in law enforcement, fear had been his constant companion. Pushing forward despite whatever he might experience, no matter how sinister or potentially hazardous, was a fact of life everyone carrying a badge must face.

Not here. Not now. Traumatized by images that offend every aspect of his sense of self-worth, and place within an organization that provides security to a society that couldn't exist without it, his subconscious drive to make-things-right had gone off the rails.

Muttering 'today was going so well' repeatedly in a vain attempt to bring his shattered psyche into focus, the miniscule weight of the weapon provides both comfort and a sense of purpose. No matter what, it ended here. Smith would never leave the interrogation room alive if that's what it took to stop a monster.

Kelly's returns five minutes later to find Detective Donner standing calmly with both hands clasped behind his back. Gasping for air from the effort needed to lift the large briefcase, she walks into the room and struggles to speak, "If I - If I had known how - heavy this thing is, I - I would've have borrowed a cart - from the janitor! I can't even imagine how he - how he had the strength to drag this ugly thing all around DC."

Donner doesn't respond to her out of breath comments. In fact, he gives no sign of even knowing she is in the room. His full attention is fixed upon the rapid talking subject on the other side of the glass.

"Sir?"

"Huh? Oh, you're back. Did you get it?"

"Yes, and I've picked up boat anchors that weigh less."

Donner responds with a, "Good work", that's more automatic courteousness than a true acknowledgement of Kelly's response to his question, or the levity she attached to it. Struggling to divide his mental focus equally between performing his duty, and preserving an outward appearance of professional composure, he takes the heavy briefcase from her grasp and walks with a measured gait towards the interrogation room.

As his hand falls on the doorknob, he begins to speak without turning to face her, "I'm resuming point on this interrogation. Follow my lead and back me up, but keep this in mind. Whatever happens is my responsibility and mine alone. You will not question my actions, and if ask you to leave you will do so. Is this understood?"

"Yes sir."

As a veteran of scores of high intensity interrogations over the last four years, Kelly recognizes her superior's 'take-charge' attitude and tone of voice, but is taken aback by the unaccustomed intensity.

As a rule, Detective Donner's emotional response to the darkest side of humanity was difficult to read. Today, for the very first time, she was seeing gapping cracks in his unshakeable neutral demeanor; yet another disquieting event in a day filled with horror beyond anything in her experience.

"Coming?"

Kelly's internal musing vanishes. Detective Donner is standing almost within arm's reach holding the door open for her.

"Sorry, my mind was a million miles away."

Muttering, Better there than here, he closes the door and they take their seats once more.

It's like they'd never left. The subject is still talking.

"- can you believe it?! They cut me out of the deal! Me! After all I've done for those ingrates; they stab me in the back for a few measly percentage points! Not that it did them a lick of good, mind you.

No way, no how, my suppliers are absolutely top drawer and totally loyal to me. We've been together far too long to let a couple greedy upstarts undercut our mutually profitable business relationship. Anything those two imbeciles bought on the open market is suspect at best.

I can just imagine the fireworks when their customer, formerly my customer, took possession of the merchandize only to discover it was garbage. Serves them right, I say! Top quality at a reasonable price is my motto. No one does better than my partner and I -"

Seeing an opening, Donner interrupts, "You have a partner, Mr. Smith? Could I speak to him?"

After being questioned, once again, about his favorite topic, himself, the bruised and battered orange suited man on the other side of the table changes course mid-sentence, "and we have for - Oh, yes! My partner and I go way, way back. In fact, you could say we're inseparable."

"So when can I speak to your partner?"

"I regret to say that's quite impossible."

"Why's that, Mr. Smith?" Donner asks. Not expecting a rational answer, he's not disappointed in the slightest.

"He's my silent partner."

"That makes all the sense in the world." Determined not to let this moment of semi-lucidity go to waste, Donner reaches into his pocket, "Here's my cell phone. Go ahead and call your partner. Someone will have to pick you up when we're done here."

Smiling as if holding back the punch line for a joke only he knows, the subject shakes his head and replies, "That won't be necessary. My partner will be here shortly anyway. Besides, I doubt you could afford the long distance charges."

Convinced the so-called partner is nothing but a figment born from the subject's warped imagination; Donner opens a manila folder resting on the tabletop containing three sheets of paper. Each page describes an incident the top brass urgently needs an immediate explanation for.

Knowing how important a flair for the melodramatic can be, he picks the briefcase off the floor with both hands, turns it sideways, and drops it from a height of about two feet next to the folder. The two policemen and Kelly are startled by the explosive sound of leather and cheap government spec stamped steel coming together at high speed. The subject just looks mildly anxious.

"Please be careful with that case, Detective Donner. It was a gift from an appreciative long-standing patron who is, sadly, no longer with us. It has great sentimental value and would be difficult to replace."

Breakthrough! For the first time the subject had referred to someone in the room by name. Not knowing how long this particular bout of rationality might last, Donner spins the rudimentary fang-shaped clasp and rests the open case face-up, without a glance at the numerous small compartments lining both sides, and the many objects contained therein.

"Why is that, Mr. Smith? Alligator skin isn't that expensive."

In an instant, the subject's facial expression changes radically. And, after a few seconds of wild flailing, he points his handcuffed hands at the briefcase.

"Alligator skin? How dare you insult my late client in such a base and despicable manner?! I'll have you know, sir, there isn't a single shred of stinking swamp dwelling reptile in that magnificent work of art!

Only the finest tanned Tyrannosaurs Rex hide was used over a framework of prime-quality Velociraptor ribs to craft the outer case. And the inner surface was assembled from the softest Pterodactyl wing skin and sinew available. Not to mention, that magnificently scrimshawed handle you just abused was carved from a single flawless Allosaurus tooth!

Alligator skin indeed!"

Donner mentally scratches 'time-traveler' off his bucket-list. Over his lengthy and illustrious career as a police interrogator, a myriad of perps covering the ever widening spectrum of criminal activity had been brought before him; the vast majority weren't worth a second of his time. A select few were more amusing than an all-day ticket to Disney World.

Run of the mill racially diverse wannabe gangsters were, quite frankly, a dime a dozen in any city. The same went for the far more numerous 'chemically enhanced' street punks who'd kill their mother for pocket change.

On those rare occasions his services weren't in demand, he'd actually look forward to shaking hands with a crazed cult leader who had raped, killed, and dismembered - not necessarily in that order - a member of his flock on orders from a divine source only he could hear.

This month was about average - a murder-by-arson suspect claiming to be a reincarnated Adolf Hitler, and a teenager who stabbed several fellow bus riders in a short-lived attempt to cull DC of excess humans while wearing a Smoky the Bear fursuit.

They, in turn, were followed by a prolific serial rapist on a one-man crusade to save the human race from rapidly approaching population loss, and a former TV-starlet calling herself Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy, who drowned her three children in a deranged attempt to launch their souls into outer space before a looming catastrophe struck planet Earth.

Good times.

With a nearly imperceptible smile that almost shouts, 'I got him!' Donner glances right and left at the other law officers in the room. They, in turn, relax and sit back in their chairs in anticipation of shortly calling it a day. As they well knew, every subject of an interrogation, no matter how intelligent or certifiably insane, often both, has a weak spot.

For some, a nicotine addiction and a cordially offered cigarette is their undoing. For others, the road to a prison gurney and lethal injection starts with a few kind words offering justification for whatever depraved act he or she stands accused of.

In this case, it actually was a case - a briefcase. In truth, it was the ugliest piece of luggage everyone gathered in the room, except for the subject, had ever seen in their lives.

With a melodious chime, the Google Glass headset hanging around Kelly's neck comes to life. Slipping the miniature display module back over her right eye, she is greeted by an image from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History online T-Rex fossil collection with the words, 'I'm back', superimposed over its toothy grin.

Those two words are followed shortly by, 'Mom's getting off work in an hour and a half. I'll stay here to help until she comes by - if you don't mind.'

After mouthing a silent 'Thank-you' at the two-way glass, Kelly turns her attention back to her superior.

"- - - and please accept my sincerest apology. I intended no disrespect towards you, your former customer, or this 'unique' briefcase he gave you. And please, call me Lance. We're all friends here, aren't we?"

Still visibly upset, Smith responds with an irritated sounding 'fine' and rests his handcuffed hands back on the tabletop.

In a further attempt to ingratiate himself into the subject's good graces, Donner makes an obvious observation in a casual non-confrontational tone, "Considering they've been extinct for sixty-five million years, obtaining 'prime-quality' T-REX hide must be somewhat difficult."

On its face the comment is absurd. The response is even more so.

"For you perhaps, but my suppliers are constantly looking for more of the pesky things to fill orders. I usually don't involve myself with live merchandise; marketing rare collectables is far safer.

Dealing with things that can bite you in half is an unacceptable business risk if you ask me. Yet, I can't find fault with others who do. It's an enormously profitable and exponentially growing market. A rather broad, and well-paying, segment of the customer base consider those scaly troublemakers cute, cuddly and extremely -"

Paying only partial attention, Donner makes an internal comment to the rapidly increasing flow of nonsense, Oy vey! Now I've heard it all! Didn't this fruitcake ever see Jurassic Park? Does he really believe mindless eating-machines weighing seven tons or more could ever be 'cute and cuddly'?

Fearing he might lose control of the conversation, he lifts the topmost page off the pile and removes a paperclip-held photo. With a skill born from countless interrogations, he interrupts the subject mid-sentence when he skips it nonchalantly across the table to within an inch of the man's handcuffed hands.

"Was this gentlemen one of the, how did you put it, well-paying segment of their repeat customer base', Mr. Smith?"

"Not at all, Sergeant Francisco and I were only scheduled to meet once."

Reaching into the briefcase, Donner removes a heavily worn and pockmarked marble sphere the size of tennis ball, "And your meeting had something to do with this thing?"

"That's correct. It was a simple swap with no haggling required. After all this time, my client and the - err organization he represents will be overjoyed to get it back."

The subject's face and body language display not the slightest surprise, or concern, that his activities had been observed. After a habitual glance at his wrist for a watch that isn't there, and a nearly inaudible sigh, he looks up at Detective Donner as if prompting him to hurry up.

The gesture doesn't pass unnoticed.

"Going somewhere? We might be here for quite a while yet."

Mr. Smith's response is as enigmatic, and incomprehensible, as any he'd given so far.

"Yes and no."

"Moving on - what can you tell me about this thing? Considering how beat up it is, I can't see it being worth much."

"That's Sergeant Francisco's fault, I'm afraid. It had been pristine for almost two millennia. That is, until Ernest found what he believed was an abandoned temple in Vietnam and used his rifle butt to hammer a Foo Dog's paw until that sphere came loose. Souvenir hunters can be unbelievably thoughtless when they think no one is watching."

The screen over Kelly's eye fills with scrolling text:

Sergeant Ernest P. Francisco. Born 12 Feb 1944, Houston, Texas, drafted Jan1969. Assigned to 3rd Battalion, 506th Infantry, deployed to Vietnam, March 1970. Member of long-range patrol that engaged the 95th North Vietnamese Army in the Mang Yang Pass area of Binh Dinh Province, Vietnam, June same year.

Two weeks after EVAC to the Veteran's hospital in Hilo, Hawaii, he succumbed, April 1970, to his injuries and was subsequently awarded, posthumously, the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. He is credited with acts of exceptional bravery that allowed his squad to retreat from superior forces that surrounded them within unidentified ruins. Sergeant Francisco is the sole recorded casualty or injury attributed to this engagement. Source - CIA war archives, Langley, Virginia.

Foo Dog: Stone or bronze statues depicting guardian lions. Found in front of Chinese Imperial palaces, Imperial tombs, government offices, temples, and the homes of government officials and wealthy from the Han Dynasty (circa 206 BC-AD 220). Male statues typically hold embroidered ball under right paw signifying supremacy over the world. Superstition: thought to provide protection and good fortune throughout Asia - source, Wikipedia, et al.

Kelly takes a pencil and post-it-note out of her purse, and, in an action that offends her inner nerd no end, scribbles a note in large block letters without any electronic assistance.

Feeling the first pangs of separation anxiety for the high-end miniature tablet computer Donner had ordered her to leave outside - knuckle dragging Angry Birds hating Luddite! -she checks her painstaking calligraphy three times before reaching out and handing it to him.

'Sergeant Ernest Francisco - Vietnam - suffered fatal injuries protecting his squad - died in hospital, Hawaii 1970 - unknown man in wheelchair, possible identity theft?

Foo Dog - antique Chinese statue- metal or stone - looks like dog or dragon - holds sphere symbolizing power, protection and luck - possible vandalism of world heritage site / traffic in stolen property?'

Despite Donner's innate dislike of technology's growing dominance over good ol' fashion police work, there was no denying it had revolutionized his job. And, while he wouldn't be caught dead wearing that space-cadet gadget Kelly is so enamored with, if it got him to a precinct captain's private office sooner he'd happily duct tape a widescreen TV to his head.

Deciding to take advantage of the information he'd just been handed, Donner begins a less formal free-flowing conversational line of inquiry.

"So he 'borrowed' this good luck charm, huh?"

"Is that what they call destruction of private property and theft these days? No matter, in the end the original owner choose to let him leave with it. As it turns out, he needed all the 'good luck' it could bring him - for a time."

"I'd be kinda steamed if someone damaged my property, Mr. Smith. And I sure wouldn't let them walk off with it."

"I'm not privy to my client's thoughts or motives, Detective - err Lance. I was only tasked with contacting Sergeant Francisco to ask if he was ready to return their property."

Looking for new buttons to push, Donner drops the heavily scarred sphere from a height of several inches onto the table and begins to bat it back and forth between his open palms. He didn't have to wait long for a reaction.

"Mishandling that thing caused Sergeant Francisco all kinds of grief. It's best to leave it in peace."

"I've seen the photos. The man you meet still looks healthy to me, barring the wheelchair. It must take a fair amount of luck to earn all those ribbons pinned to his jacket, let alone survive a war and live to ripe old age of seventy something."

"Real luck only gets you so far. Ernest was an exceptionally brave soldier, and he earned every medal and ribbon he was wearing when I meet him, but he was about as sharp as that stone ball you're playing with. I still can't believe how oblivious he was to the world around him. How he survived battle after battle without a scratch while his fellow soldiers dropped like flies, never once crossed his mind.

And his cluelessness remained intact through several spectacular car crashes, a boating accident, assorted illnesses, major diseases, and an all consuming warehouse fire that wiped out many of his personal friends and coworkers in civilian life.

In the end, it took the death of every single member of his family before he realized something was off kilter. And another decade would go by, at the ripe old age of seventy one, before he even started wondering about the war-souvenir gathering dust on his mantelpiece."

Suspecting he'd just stumbled into a wider circle of homicides stretching back decades, Donner asks, "Are you claiming he had some kind of PTSD induced amnesia? That he went around murdering people wholesale and didn't remember anything about it until decades later?"

"Ernest? Hardly, he loved his wife and their three children with every fiber of his being. And he was a loyal and helpful friend to both coworkers and neighbors. A typical average-Joe accident-prone klutz, who somehow, kept coming out of life's little mishaps smelling like a rose while people around him - how do you say it now: Bit-the-big-one?"

By this point, Donner usually had a clear sense as to the guilt, or innocence, of the subject of an investigation. Right now his professional assessment tilted towards guilty as hell. Whether this case involved a wide spread conspiracy, or a single participant responsible for a multitude of serial mass murders, would ultimately be a matter of the subject's peers and a judge to hash out.

The last two subjects he interrogated weren't even a challenge.

The first was an extremely intelligent pathological liar with a thespian's flair for the dramatic. Unfortunately, for him, his inability to separate fantasy from reality was coupled to a piss-poor memory. As any police investigator knows, truth is often monotonous and rarely survives embellishment.

By the time he finished relating his contrived versions of reality, he'd contradicting himself in twenty-six separate occasions, and the number of potential suspects he blamed for his quadruple homicide could staff all three shifts of a busy McDonalds restaurant.

There was no question about the loudmouth's guilt. Donner was convinced on that point in the time it took to walk into the interrogation room and finish that day's first cup of coffee. Considering how slow new assignments had been recently, he asked few questions and simply watched the show until the suspect ran out of gas and confessed.

The second was a career politician with a habitual inability to drink, drive, and keep his hands off a soon-to-be-murdered call girls' throat. And telling the truth about any of it never crossed his mind. In essence, the same scenario, the same inability to keep a story straight, and the same ending with even less originality.

The constant stream of threats to use his political influence with the district's powerful one-percenters was a refreshing change of pace, though.

By the time the photogenic politico was perp-walked past the media's cameras in route to a prison cell, there was little his army of angry high-priced lawyers could do but give Donner the stink-eye. And the incriminating info he dropped on his fellow 'important people' during the interrogation would keep the IRS, the FBI, and the District of Columbia police force busy for years.

This subject, so far, was giving every indication of being a worst case scenario. The kind of criminal interrogators hate to deal with the most.

The average liar might as well wear a T-Shirt reading 'I'm a Bull Shitter'.

A good liar, on the other hand, can mix a tall tale with enough authenticatable facts to entertain, or deceive, others willing to partake in a brief vacation from reality. Even a weary seasoned interrogator can fall victim to their story-making talent.

The worst of their ilk, the true believer, is a disaster waiting to happen.

Not only can they dive into an alternate world of their own making, they have the force of will to promulgate their vision and inspire others to defend it by any means necessary. Those that refuse to join their hapless followers, or worse, threaten to unmask their tangled web of distortions and mistruths, fill graveyards in uncountable millions.

Donner hates them with a passion. That lifelong dislike is growing slowly, but steadily, into full-blown madness.

Still batting the ball slowly from side to side between his palms, Donner bends down to examine it more closely. The smile on his face is as phony as the response he expects to get.

He isn't disappointed.

"So what happened? Did the batteries run out? Is there a switch somewhere to turn the good luck back on?"

"That sphere was an object of veneration for many centuries, detective. The ah - people - who created it believed it could bend probability, luck in other words, towards a more positive outcome if their deities believed the prayers directed at them were sincere.

Nothing unusual in the slightest if you think about it. I'd wager a vast multitude of similar religious objects are carried openly within this very building, let alone more secular objects like that rabbit foot keychain attached to that beautiful young lady's purse. The only real difference is that this one works."

Kelly, sighing in a combination of embarrassment and annoyance, removes the purse lifts the purse hanging from her chair and places it on the floor.

With a wide smile that must bring significant pain his split lip, Smith continues, "Unfortunately, as in banking, there is a penalty for early or excessive withdrawals.

Poor Ernest wrote far too many bad checks. Payback with sky-high interest was, in many cases, a killer. It's astounding how many had to pay the ultimate price to keep his lengthy streak of good fortune intact."

Donner stops rolling the ball. With a look of incredulity etched into his features, he picks it up and drops it back into the briefcase.

"So where is he? Can he come here to corroborate your story?"

"I'm afraid that's not possible. When given the opportunity to clear the books, so to speak, Ernest jumped for it. With a simple swap, a Purple Heart medal for a banged up stone ball, all his debts were forgiven. And everyone - fellow soldiers, coworkers, friends, family, and a multitude of perfect strangers - resume the path destiny had originally charted for them.

In a nutshell, my clients get their stolen Foo Dog's ball back, and Ernest lives long enough to see the names of his dead war buddies vanish from a tombstone and his appear. Can you imagine anything more heroic?"

"Let me get this straight. You're saying he's dead?"

"That's correct, dead-as-a-door-nail."

"And the dead people he served with in Vietnam, along with everyone else, are now alive?"

"Some are. Many aren't. Time marches on, Detective Donner, sorry - Lance."

It's a safe bet to make that Donner hadn't read a science fiction book in his life. Except for an obsession with comics book super heroes as a youngster, with an enduring crush on Wonder Woman still predominant amongst them, his earliest mindset was molded by television movies and shows depicting Wild West desperadoes, and the Texas Rangers tasked with bringing them to justice, - and a rope.

But certain aspects of the genre had penetrated his studied indifference. Getting stuck with a college dorm roommate addicted to the 'Star Trek' science fiction franchise, and their scriptwriters' incessant overuse of dimensional and time travel dues-ex-machina plotlines, made sure of that.

"So how exactly does that work? If everything was put back like it never happened, how do I, or anyone else, still know anything about Sergeant Francisco? And shouldn't that magic eight-ball he stole vanish, too? As you can see, it's still inside your briefcase. That's a mighty strong time paradox you've got going against you."

The response was as quick, and internally consistent, as a deluded person can be expected to give when their twisted worldview is challenged logically.

"By no means. As I explained before, that sphere was made for religious worship. What's the point if those who created it couldn't experience, and remember, its miraculous acts? Of course they took every effort to insure that anyone within range of its power would remain cognizant of the event.

Not surprised in the slightest by subject's answer, Donner mumbles an insincere sounding 'Of course' and moves quickly onto the next page from the pile. The last thing he wants is to let up the pressure and allow the subject's testimony to degrade into a renewed flood of verbal white noise.

After holding up a small four by six inch photograph for the subject to see, he asks, "What can you tell me about, Larry, Moe, and Curly Joe?"

"Who?"

Letting a small sample of the strain he is experiencing momentarily show in his voice, Donner rams a fingertip into the photo.

"These - guys -right - here, the ancient munchkins with the ZZ Top beards! Are they friends of yours, perhaps?"

"Business rivals would be a better description. My partner has been at odds with their patron for an incredibly long time. You could say those three inherited a lot of baggage when they chose to associate themselves with a competitor. I'd hate to even imagine the untidiness if they meet."

Donner turns the photograph around and examines it closely.

"You seem somewhat chummy with them, any thoughts on that?"

"Business is business. Just because I have a partner who has - issues - with a potential client doesn't mean I can't take advantage of the situation. It's not like I haven't made a tidy profit off the incredible incompetence of those three rank amateurs before.

"They do look kinda funny. Were they coming from a costume party?"

"Not at all, I believe that's formal business attire. I'm not absolutely sure; they're on my list of excluded sales territories. And my partner absolutely refuses to travel or have any direct dealing with the err - place - they come from. We usually meet after a neutral third party contacts me privately."

"They have to look like Japanese monks to work?"

"Their base of operation is actually in China, somewhere near the Tibetan border. They're employed by a relatively new organization, in comparison to my own, with several satellite offices branching out from their headquarters on the west end of the Kunlun Mountains near Khembalung. I have no idea where they came from originally. They wear those robes, and other things, to blend in with -

After Kelly hears another alert tone, the Google Glass display covering her right eye fills once more with row after row of scrolling text. No stranger to a broad spectrum of classic fantasy movies and literature, she comes perilously close to performing a face palm and groaning out loud as she reads:

Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. Hilton describes Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La is become synonymous with any earthly paradise, and particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia - a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance.

The word also evokes the imagery of exoticism of the Orient. In the ancient Tibetan scriptures, existence of seven such places is mentioned as Nghe-Beyul Khembalung. Khembalung is one of several beyuls "hidden lands" similar to Shangri-La) believed to have been created by Padmasambhaya in the 8th century as idyllic, sacred places of refuge for Buddhists during times of strife (Reinhardt 1978). Some scholars believe that the Shangri-La story owes a literary debt to Shambhala, a mythical kingdom in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, which was sought by Eastern and Western explorers - source Wikipedia.

"- the locals who aren't great fans of visitors but are willing to tolerate intruders able to pay staggering sums in gold, silver, and other precious items for the right to dig under their feet.

Since this longstanding agreement was made with an organization that specializes in deep subsurface mining, both parties almost never interact to any significant degree. An arraignment which I believe, considering how many ways matters could go extremely badly for everyone living above ground, is all for the best."

At this point, Kelly is stuck in a quandary.

One - she could tell Donner the subject is trying to make a fool out of him, again, by combining a thinly disguised literary masterpiece with his tall tales. A course of action that could, if only subconsciously, see him take out his resentment upon her at performance evaluation time.

Or, two - keep her mouth shut and hope he figures it out with little chance of being drawn into this mess herself.

Number two it is!

Her fears are misplaced.

Donner's annoying Trekker roommate from his college dorm days, an English major, also had a propensity to narrate Shakespeare, Milton, Hilton and a host of others out loud late into the night. That is, he did until he rolled out of an upper bunk bed early one morning and, somehow, suffered a shocking number of fist-sized contusions when he hit the floor.

Upon his bandaged return from the clinic, this same unfortunate individual found his packed suitcases, books and VCR tapes, all neatly stacked outside the door. Taking the less than subtle hint to heart, he carried his property away without complaint and left to seek more amenable accommodations elsewhere.

Not one to give up when confronted with a hostile, or babbling insane interrogation subject, Donner decides to play along again in hopes he might gather some useful information, "So, these three friends of yours are miners?"

"I'd classify them as good customers and leave it at that. As to being miners, I doubt they could, individually or as a group, dig a latrine without killing themselves."

"What do they do? I can't see those fancy robes being much use for manual labor."

"Quite observant detective, they were hired solely to act as intermediaries with those living above their employer's mining operations.

They are responsible for transporting contractual mineral rights payments to the surface, a particularly laborious task when you take into account the massive weight and distances involved. And, if possible, return the bodies of any trespassers along with a proper display of regret and appropriate monetary restitution.

It doesn't happen often, but the overly curious, and greedy, do have an annoying habit of entering a mine shaft without authorization. A fatal - accident - is a near certainty."

Wondering what new kind of scam the subject is trying to pull, Donner asks the next question almost by reflex, "How so? I'm well aware mining outside the US isn't up to our standards, but can it really be that bad?"

"Conditions in major sections of their employer's mines are exceptionally challenging for the - unqualified. Without intensive training and acclimation, total darkness, lack of oxygen, extreme temperature gradients, falling debris, and exposure to toxic gases or elements could kill an ill equipped visitor in short order.

Besides, err - the mine workers - are a pretty rough and rowdy bunch. They don't like to be bothered by trespassers swinging flashlights around and messing with their refuse piles looking for discarded precious metals and gems.

Anyone breaking their routine is likely to experience severely negative consequences. And most of the wildlife that infests the tunnels they dig is far worse. So no, I'm quite certain the conditions in their mines aren't up to US standards."

After muttering softly to himself, What - he's not going to throw in Bilbo Baggins and Smaug, too? Donner decides to stop wasting time and start a more direct line of questioning.

"So these three old guys are just hired flunkies?"

"They're a little more than that, but not much more. And I'd hardly call them old. Your young aid with that outlandish thing on her face is about their age - relatively speaking."

Donner holds the photograph up again for the subject to see, "Do these beards look like they belong on a twenty-seven year old? Let alone all those wrinkles and liver spots?"

The Google Glass display refreshes to show the image of a different dinosaur, and a single line of flashing superimposed text: Holy cow! Detective Kelly and Sue the T-rex are the same age!

While Donner and Smith are looking at the photograph, Kelly lifts her gaze towards the two-way mirror. After making sure no one is looking in her direction, she sticks her tongue out at the glass and the teenager who's likely laughing hysterically on the other side.

Seconds later the dinosaur image fades away to be replaced with a close-up screen-capture photo of her face, and extended tongue, taken from the interrogation room's ceiling mounted security camera.

Quickly realizing the computer science major outside has her outgunned, Kelly smiles and turns her attention back to her boss.

"Because they're not only avaricious, they are also mind-bogglingly incompetent. It wasn't the first time they asked me to get them out of trouble, and it likely won't be the last. Disturbing things they don't understand will be the deaths of -."

Seeing an opening that ties into a topic of burning interest to the top brass, Donner jumps in, "Something radioactive, perhaps? It does seem all of you took great care to avoid touching it."

"Radioactive? No? Yes? I don't think so. My partner is far more knowledgeable when it comes to such matters. My forte is personalized business transactions, acquisitions, and public relations; skills my colleague unquestionably lacks in the extreme. You could say we complement each other."

"So what was it, some kind of weapon? All of you were clearly acting like it was dangerous."

For someone who fits the description of motor-mouth to a T, taking more than a minute to reply is out of character and duly noted.

"Well -?"

"Left alone, like their employers undoubtedly ordered those three idiots to do, the object they pilfered is exactly the opposite of dangerous. It, along with innumerable others, were buried with great care long ago to bring good health and extended longevity to anyone of good will who lives nearby - or so the story goes."

Donner's late wife had been a great fan of anything Japanese.

Having spent two backbreaking weekends moving heavy furniture into every conceivable position around their new home under her exacting direction - sometimes with changes measurable in fractions of an inch - he could accurately say he was an unwilling expert on the topic of, "Are you talking about Feng Shui?"

"Something far older actually, but yes, that's roughly the idea."

"And those three disturbed it?"

"In about the worst way imaginable, I'm afraid. Much like taking medicine intended for another can have unforeseen life-threatening side effects, the consequences of their unintentional exposure is readily apparent. And totally in character with other idiotic escapades they've undertaken in the past. Fortunately, after my timely assistance, they should be right as rain shortly."

"And you just happened to be carrying around a container that could help them?"

"I know it might sound strange to the uninitiated, but people in my line of work must be prepared to deal with all manner of known hazards. Even though I don't normally deal in such items - short supply has reduced demand to a tiny fraction of what it once was - I must be ready to safely transport unicorn horns and such when a client places an order."

"Unicorn horns - as in a horse with a horn on its head? Are you serious?"

"Deadly serious, you don't last long in my profession taking stupid risks transporting highly dangerous merchandise. If you want proof, that picture in your hand should be more than sufficient."

Talking of pictures, Kelly's Google Glass headset begins to display yet another new image.

Despite her best efforts, Kelly can't avoid performing a slow motion face palm as she recognizes an emo internet fandom-made image of Twilight Sparkle's sprawled corpse, the unicorn protagonist of the incredibly popular television cartoon series, 'My Little Ponies, Friendship is Magic' with blood dripping from where her horn should be.

Having seen enough gore this day to last her a lifetime, she removes the Google Glass headset and pantomimes snapping it in half between her hands. With any luck the teenager on the other side of the mirror will get the hint.

She does.

As she puts it back on, a short looping YouTube clip begins to play showing a smiling animated pony, with a bright pink puffball coat and pasted on fake horn, hopping in place atop a small rainbow. As the video recycles, three sung words fill Kelly's earpiece repeatedly with, 'Dancing on rainbows', in sync to the beat of a catchy cartoonish melody.

Almost laughing out loud, she smiles and nods at the mirror as the crudely made animation and music fades away, and the tiny Google glass monitor returns to a clear standby state.

Already feeling regret for having expressed irritation towards the possibly emotionally distressed young woman outside the room, she sighs and turns her attention back to the ongoing interrogation.

"- putting unicorns and their horns aside for the moment, what else can you tell me about these three guys?"

"There's not much more to tell, Detective err - Lance. They contact me when they get in trouble, and I do my best to rectify the situation - for a fee to be agreed upon later - before their employers find out and do something 'unspeakable' to them.

"How do they contact you?"

"Courier is the preferred method. Only once in person, like today."

"If they're in so much trouble, wouldn't calling you by phone call or email be faster?"

"My partner is vehemently averse to the use of modern communication technology. And I suspect theirs impose similar restrictions. As a rule, our employers and customers rely on face-to-face transactions for best results. Customer satisfaction is paramount after all."

Suspecting the lengthy explanation is but a smokescreen to hide the truth, Donner asks, "Why do I feel you're leaving something out? Are your three non-friends doing something you don't want to tell me about?"

Looking ill at ease, which an observer might find hard to discern when large parts of the face they're looking at is swollen, deeply scratched, or black and blue, Smith leans a little over the table and whispers in a conspiratorial tone, "Longstanding rivalries between different groups can flare into open hostility if either side suspects their privacy has been compromised."

"So, you won't tell me."

"I'm truly sorry. Helping when they run into trouble is the full extent of our relationship. What little I know about their working conditions came from the grapevine. They may be fools, but even they aren't stupid enough to divulge trade secrets behind their employer's back - so to speak."

Seeing an opening offering possible insight into whatever terrorist organization the subject might be affiliated with, Donner jumps in with, "A grapevine, huh? That implies there are others like you. How many are there?"

"I like to think of myself as unique, but that's more personal conceit than truth. I don't know our total numbers, but just like them I had been judged from afar and found worthy of recruitment.

When the moment came to act, my partner was sent to offer me the rare opportunity to 'expand my horizons' far beyond what the vast majority will ever get in their lifetimes. Frankly, my only other option at the time was rather bleak. I had little choice but to accept the vacant position despite terms most people would find both - disquieting and rather distasteful.

So despite a number of personality quirks that make communication between us difficult at times, we do try to keep in touch and aid each other whenever possible. It's not easy; many of our employers don't exactly see eye-to-eye-to-eye-to-eye - well, you get the idea."

Despite the lengthening, and stilted, responses, Donner can't avoid noticing how closely the subject is skirting the edge of rationality. Fearing the window to obtain actionable info might be closing, he tries to gather whatever Intel he can on the subject's backers, if they even exist beyond the confines of his disturbed mind."

"And who exactly are your employers?"

"My partner is entirely responsible for that aspect of our relationship. Personally, I'd rather avoid dealing with 'upper management'. As long my actions don't conflict with their goals, I'm usually left free to conduct my private pursuits until called to service."

"What about this 'upper management'? Do they take orders from Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or maybe even the Iranians?"

"That's actually funny!'Taking orders', please - please say that again!"

"I'm not here to entertain you, Mr. Smith."

"I'm begging you! I haven't heard anything that hilarious in years!"

"No."

Pouting, which looks nothing less than grotesque when attempted with a face so heavily injured, let alone by a middle-age male adult who couldn't be called handsome on his best day; the subject gazes pleadingly at Detective Donner and gives a less than passable imitation of a young child's puppy eyes, "PPP - LLL -EEE - AAA - SSS - EEE!"

"No!"

"Oh - pooh!"

Thinking And here we go again!, Donner removes the next to last page from his work folder. Since it's clear the subject's tenuous grasp on rationality was nearing its end, he quickly begins to recite the set of charges associated with this specific incident. Detective Kelly's interest in the proceedings is drawn away momentarily by the reactivation of her Google Glass display:

CNN News Bulletin - recent Sun spot activity has increased without warning to an unexpected level. A series of coronal mass ejections have been predicted to impact the Earth's ionosphere over the next four to twelve hours. No significant danger to the surface is expected, but astronauts aboard the International Space Lab are moving to their radiation shelter.

NASA is also warning of possible widespread electromagnetic interference, potential localized electrical grid interruptions, and damage to high-orbit satellites that aren't placed in powered-down protective mode.

FYI Detective Kelly - satellite internet speed overall has decreased twenty percent. Ground and undersea cables remain unaffected. Several large hubs in Europe and China are reporting anything from intermittent failures to total loss of service. I will keep you advised if our (FBI - NSA) in-house satellite linkup experiences any problems. This might be one for the record books. - Tina

Kelly gives a thumbs-up to the mirror and turns her attention back to the interrogation. It's not going well.

"- Street vending without a license -"

"Since when does anyone need a license to barter?"

"- Impeding commerce -"

"Impeding, what?"

"- You almost made Ms. Wu late for work -"

"Almost doesn't count."

"- Stalking -"

"I was standing on the sidewalk. She walked up to me."

"- Harassment -"

"I didn't say ten words to her."

"- Public indecency -"

"Unless my trousers were unzippered, I have no idea what you mean."

"- Public indecency: as in the use of profanity in a public venue -"

"Not fair! I'm the injured party! After everything she called me, I'm going to be emotionally scarred for life!"

"- You understand Mandarin Chinese? -"

"No, but I get cursed at a lot. If you deal with the public for long enough, as I have, you get a feeling for such things."

"- Theft -"

"That's a lie! I didn't get to trade a single item before she struck me; a rather painful blow I might add. And her fingernails belong on a leaf rake is you ask me. People around here sure are tense for some reason."

"- So you deny you were trying to exchange a key for an expensive gold engagement ring? -"

"I assure you, it was a fair trade. By the way, Ms. Wu's former paramour lied. That ring is hardly valuable. I'd say it falls somewhere between the bargain bin and costume jewelry. She'd unquestionably be getting a reasonable exchange, and would have no complaints once she saw what that key can do."

Bending forward only slightly from his place at the head of the small table, Donner roots around inside the open briefcase until he finds a sizable scratched and tarnished antique brass key. After a few seconds of close examination, he holds it up in front of the subject's battered face.

"- What can this thing do besides open an old trunk? -"

For the first time in nearly two hours of a non-stop interrogation, the subject's features twist to display an emotion no one in the room would expect the fast-talking hyperactive perp capable of: embarrassment.

After raising his handcuffed hands to block his mouth from Kelly's view, Mr. Smith replies to the question with a stage whisper that could be overheard across the length of a crowded city bus during rush hour, "Do I have to tell you in front of - her?!"

"If you would, I promise you we've all heard far worse."

"Very well - like I've already told you, I'm a purveyor of antiquities and oddities. That key, along with many other items of similar nature, are the bread n' butter of my trade. I can't tell you how precious every single item in my briefcase is to me - especially the rings.

I'm constantly traveling around my territory seeking items like that key, or that ring. The discerning collectors I service covet these items for their attachment to events of significant emotional expression. Or, even better, items whose previous owner was, to put it bluntly, a little out of the ordinary."

"What does this key have to do with Ms. Wu's ring; the ring you just said is worthless."

"Yes, yes - the ring is definitely that, but the raw emotions she imbued it with are not. Ms. Wu came to this country to start a life and family she couldn't have back home, and after suffering years of despair fearing it might never happen, she finally meet the man of her dreams.

For months afterwards she poured her essence into that cheap circle of metal. Day and night she dreamt about the storybook life she'd have after marrying her one true love - AND THEN THE CAD BETRAYED MS. WU AT THE LAST SECOND TO WED HER BEST FRIEND! PRICELESS!"

"And you could tell all this by seeing her walk down the street?"

"That's not my responsibility."

"What the heck does that mean?!"

"As I've explained repeatedly, I'm a purveyor of antiques and oddities. My sole function is to act as an intermediary between those who own what others covet. On occasion my partner tells me who to contact, the nature of what they possess, the place to meet them, and what items I'm authorized to trade in return."

Struggling to keep his growing frustration in check, Donner jams his hands into his jacket pockets and begins to speak as if conversing with a small child. Without even realizing he's doing it, the fingers of his right hand stroke his hidden pistol as it were a living creature.

"Well, I'm satisfied. But just to clarify the issue for everyone else in the room, could you tell us how you communicate with your so-called 'silent partner'? Tea leaves, Ouija board, or maybe a crystal ball?"

"I've never tried anything like that myself. Do those really work? My partner started to contact me in my dreams when I was quite young. Since I accepted my current position, we communicate anytime it is necessary - in my mind, that is."

Thinking And off to La-La land we go! , Donner muses silently as he abandons the usual course of cross-examination he'd follow at this point. As he prepares an alternate sequence of questions more suitable to the subject's current mental state, Kelly's Google monitor displays:

Schizophrenia is an incurable psychotic disorder which can deeply affect how a person perceives reality and relates to others. Without treatment, people may experience unpredictable schizophrenia symptoms such as paranoia, irrational fear, unfocussed thinking, delusions and hallucinations.

A diagnosis of schizophrenia can cause people to experience problems in their personal, social and professional lives. However, this serious mental health problem affects each patient different. - /Schizophrenia

Heads up: Cellphone interruptions are growing. Long range broadcast radio freqs seriously degraded. Peak solar flare effects predicted within the hour. Everything should start getting better by late evening and back to normal by morning.

As Kelly reads the second paragraph, she almost jumps out of her chair when the Google Glass earpiece, which had been silent to this point in the interrogation, explodes with a shouted, "YIPPEE! LINDA, DID YOU HEAR?! MLP'S GONNA HAVE A LAST SEASON ALL DAY MARATHON MONDAY BEFORE THE PREMIERE AT -"

Oops! Sorry about that! I pressed the wrong button. I was talking to a friend on my phone.

On a more serious note - NSA and CIA satellite high-speed uplinks are toast, and this government-spec piece of junk refuses to switch over to an encrypted land line! Can you come out here and fix this stupid thing? :(

Kelly shakes her head and pumps her open hands, with fingers spread wide, twice at the mirror.

Gotcha! See you in twenty minutes. Thanks.

With echoes of a high-pitched girlish squeal still degrading her hearing, it takes Kelly several seconds to focus her attention on the renewed interrogation already in progress.

"- let me repeat myself, what is so unique about this damned key?!"

Smith answers Detective Donner's question with a clearly rehearsed business presentation that blends a tour de force of self-promoting salesmanship with insanity:

"It came from an era of strife and torment: A faraway place in time and place where seemingly immutable social norms could only be challenged at great peril to reputation, social standing and, quite frequently, physical safety.

What I'm showing you - sorry! Let me go again! What you are holding in your hand insert name - darn it! I'm out of practice doing my job sitting down! I do almost everything standing up now. Okay, third time's the charm! That object you're holding was once owned by a man of great wealth, intelligence, influence, and, for his time - depravity.

You were quite right, Detective Donner. A handful of lifetimes ago that key did indeed unlock a trunk. A large and richly appointed wooden trunk fit for a royal personage that contained a dark and perilous secret.

A secret guarded since childhood when his dear mother, who died never knowing the tortured path she'd set her sole male offspring upon, used his youthful frame for days upon end to model a magnificent gown being crafted for his older sister's coming of age celebration.

Despite years of exhausting resistance, the temptation to repeat the experience slowly grew into an insurmountable obsession.

In time, as required by a man of his high station, he dutifully married to ensure the survival of the family name and fortune. But nothing was more valuable to him than a long forgotten basement store room, and the wood and metal-strapped trunk contained therein.

His family had for generations utilized this large stoutly made trunk as a final repository for women's attire deemed beyond the taste of current high fashion, yet still far too valuable to be simply discarded. Clothing he could do little to resist wearing behind closed doors whenever the urge become too much to bare.

For most of his adult life - until it ended one faithful night by his own hand after his quite literally 'veiled activities' were accidently uncovered - he vowed that key would never leave his person. And he kept that promise until it was taken from his ballroom gown clothed corpse soaked in warm, slippery, blood.

EWWW!

Kelly readily agrees with the sentiment behind the slang expressing deep disgust centered in her Google Glass eyepiece.

Even though he intellectually disregards the veracity of the subject's bizarre sales pitch, Donner can't resist the subconscious impulse to alter his grip until the key is held between thumb and index finger in the manner most people would carry a dead, and rotting, fish.

"Dear esteemed prospective customer, don't you deserve a chance to right the wrongs done to you? Sure you do, how could you not? For the price of that worthless trinket in your purse, you can use this key to obtain revenge against he who crushed your soul. I know what you're thinking, dear lady: how is this possible? I will tell you!

Please hold this in your hand but for a moment. Surely you feel this key's hunger of a new owner. A new owner who, as all others prior, will quickly find no comfort in the intimate touch of any female, but will instead become enthralled by the sensation of lace and taffeta upon their naked flesh.

And, once he succumbs, he will find himself unable to resist the temptation to demonstrate this once-private act in front of the largest number of onlookers as possible - at a time and place of YOUR choosing.

Do we have a deal?"

Looking immensely pleased with himself, Mr. Smith raises his bound hands straight up and shouts, "TA DA, THAT'S ALL FOLKS!" as if celebrating a job well done.

Donner's response is a mumbled, Stick a fork it! I'm done with this Rod Serling crap! as he tosses the tarnished key back into the briefcase and pulls the last page from the briefing folder.

As Donner silently examines that page in preparation of opening yet another line of inquiry, Kelly's eyepiece monitor displays a heavily discolored nineteenth century canvas straightjacket, a jumbo-size shiny metal screw, and a Spalding trademarked major leagues baseball.

After nodding her head once to signal agreement with Tina's assessment of the subject's unbalanced mental state, Kelly begins to read the text that follows:

RISC final results: a big fat zero. Interpol final results: the same. All pending lab tests: ditto. State Department calling in favors world-wide. They're promising to have this wacko identified within three-four days max. Translation: Don't expect to see anything before the next administration takes office.

Solar Storm worsening. None of the talking heads on television know why. Electrical grid outages on West Coast cause of moderate server failures from Seattle to Baja. Outdated equipment and inadequate taxation to maintain critical infrastructure blamed. Duh!

No significant problems to report in Central and Eastern states. Canadian media is publishing stunning images of Aurora Borealis visible in far-northern daylight sky. Russia is experiencing a nighttime lightshow, too.

IT service person came by. Secure optical land-line issues resolved. NSA and CIA links back up to speed. I will be logging out when Mom picks me up in around thirty minutes. She's bringing down my replacement - Tina

With mechanical precision, Donner takes a stack of four by six inch photographs and shuffles them. Satisfied they are now in the correct order re: the time and date stamped on the lower right corner of each one, he spreads them before the subject's handcuffed hands as if helping him set up a game of solitaire.

Jabbing the tip of his index finger atop the first - which shows a tree-shadowed figure kneeling upon the ground outside the Holocaust Museum - he asks, "Can you tell me what this place is, Mr. Smith?"

"No."

"You were photographed right there."

"I can't tell."

Close to losing his patience beyond the point of no return, Donner jabs the image repeatedly until his sweating fingertip begins to smudge the photographic emulsion, "And why the Hell not?! Is it can't or won't!?"

The subject replies in a tone so bland if it masks any humor it must be microscopic, "Can't, and it should be obvious to a detective of your caliber. Your finger is in the way."

Donner leans back in his chair without a saying word. If the tiny Micro Desert Eagle pistol in his pocket had been made of cheap plastic, instead of solid nickel Teflon-plated steel, the clinched fingers of his right hand would have crushed it flat.

Barely able to resist the impulse to toss aside the small table and do the same to the subject's throat, he backhands the heavy briefcase in a fit of pique unbecoming of someone of his professional standing and age to within an inch of Mr. Smith's bound hands.

Not knowing if the sudden burst of emotion is genuine, or just a well-rehearsed act by a master interrogator aimed at agitating a difficult subject into making a self-incrementing response, all three officers present remain silent and watch with interest.

As each knew well, an implied threat of physical violence is but one of the many tools available to an interrogator and well within the letter of the law.

More or less.

From all outward appearance, tossing a handful of rose petals across the table would have been equally effective. The subject is totally engrossed in the fingerprint-marred image showing him kneeling next to a tree with an outstretched arm and hand touching the ground.

Struggling to control his inner turmoil, Donner takes several seconds to impose a false facade of dispassionate interest on his face as he watches the suspect's activities. Once satisfied he can proceed in a manner more befitting his office, he raps his knuckles atop the table and asks, "Care to tell me anything?"

Still examining the photograph intently from every plausible angle, and some that are not, Mr. Smith replies in his customary dry tone, "Those pants - do they make my butt look big?"

Any doubt the subject is not enjoying himself immensely at their expense is clearly out the window at this point.

The response is an immediate, "Yeah, they do."

Donner may be having unaccustomed difficulty focusing on the task at hand, but they'll be issuing blizzard warnings in Hell before he lets a perp get the upper hand in a battle of wills, "Do you recognize the place yet?"

"Oh yes, I do indeed. That's the small copse of trees next to the Holocaust Museum. I can't think of a more beautiful place to reflect upon the long history of man's inhumanity to man. Don't you agree?"

"That's the kind of history I'm here to stop, Mr. Smith."

"How's that working out for you?"

"Kinda depends on what you were doing playing in the dirt. Is that something you do regularly, or just a new hobby?"

"I'm a purveyor of antiquities -"

"Yeah, yeah - I got you loud and clear the first hundred times! But what does that have to do with finger painting in the dirt outside a museum?"

Showing not the slightest indication of having heard a single word of Detective Donner's question, the subject continues doing what the does best: talking.

"- oddities. At their behest, I seek items of great value in places where my partner, and those we work for, are barred from entry - for now. Some are works of art filled with whatever sentiment the artist deliberately, or not, imbued into their work. The vast majority, however, are like the common everyday items stored in the Holocaust Museum.

If emotions, especially the darker kind, gave off light that building would outshine the Sun! Think about it! Countless individual items originating from an era when humans first perfected the mechanized wholesale slaughter of other humans by the millions; and all of it set out for maximum impact on the viewer in one- single - place!

All that despair, endless agony, years of false hope waiting for a salvation that never came - and yes, the calculated malevolent intent that caused it all - openly displayed to educate and horrify a jaded public unwilling to acknowledge evil even when it's staring them in the face."

Stunned into silence by the utter insanity of the subject's crazed response, Donner leans back in his chair and tries in vain to formulate a rational comeback. If his troubled subconscious could express itself, it would yell in total frustration, 'I AIN'T GOT NOTHING!'

Needing time to collect his thoughts, he instructs Kelly to continue the interrogation by nodding his head in her direction. She, in turn, skims through the pile of barely legible post-it notes she'd been taking since her last chance to confront the subject.

"Mr. Smith? Perhaps you could clear up a few issues for me?"

"It would be my utmost pleasure, dear lady. Fire away!"

For reasons known but to himself, the subject aims the last two words at Detective Donner with a wide smile on his torn and swollen lips.

"Thank you, I won't be long. You've mentioned having a territory several times. What area exactly are you referring to? Washington, DC. New York? Virginia?"

With an even wider smile that must be immensely painful, the subject delivers his shortest reply to date, "The Earth and everywhere else."

As Kelly silently ponders what to ask next, the tiny monitor over her right eye displays a nearly sixty year poster from the cult classic 'Plan 9 from Outer Space' movie.

Combining fanciful images of an astronaut wearing a space suit with a fishbowl for a helmet, UFO's, swept wing jet aircraft, and a red dressed fem fatale circa Hollywood 1950's, she can't help but notice how close they match the preposterous imagery already going through her brain.

Almost sighing out loud in defeat, she prepares to continue assisting with this interrogation more out of a sense of duty than any expectation of success.

Clearly the suspect's mind is more than few sandwiches short of a full picnic basket, and nothing less than years under the expert care of skilled headshrinkers, and copious amounts of potent psychotropic drugs, will likely change that to any significant degree.

Mumbling 'Go with the flow!' Kelly decides to let the subject believe she's falling for his insane drivel and formulates her next question accordingly, "All of that?"

With a straight face - not an easy task when your facial features look like they've been dragged across a floor covered in broken glass - the subject replies in a casual off the cuff tone, "My territory encompasses almost any place on Earth and beyond, that is, except for those areas that aren't already claimed by my partner's many competitors."

"Sounds like a lot of frequent flyer miles."

Without saying a single word in reply, an unprecedented and definitely out of character act, the subject stares back with the same smile as he scans her body from where the tabletop cuts it off to the top of her head.

After nearly a minute of nonstop intense inspection, which seems primarily focused on an area midway between her beltline and chin, Kelly lifts her right hand and aims it at her face, "My eyes are up here!"

The subject's quick reply provides little evidence to prove this still ongoing discourteous activity isn't intentional, "Yes, they are."

What he says next removes the slightest doubt anyone in the room might have in this regard, "Are you comfortable in the water? Do you like to swim?"

"Why do you ask? Are you picturing me swimming in a bathing suit, Mr. Smith?"

After a few more seconds, which he spends looking at Detective's Kelly bosom again with a single-minded interest a hungry man might exhibit when shown a barbequed porterhouse steak dinner with all the trimmings, the subject replies in his usual mild tone, "Something like that - minus the bathing suit."

Wanting nothing more than a chance to tell the subject where he could stick his 'something like that', Kelly swallows her ire and asks instead, "Now that we've cleared all that up, let's keep going. Okay?"

"Yes, we really should. But first, I have a couple more questions!"

With no other desire than to finish the interrogation, and likewise end this work day as soon as possible, Kelly looks towards her superior for guidance. All she gets from Detective Donner is a blank look and a single shrug of his shoulders.

Thinking Great! I'm on my own! , she waves her hand in a circular motion to nonverbally encourage the subject to articulate whatever insane query he will undoubtedly express.

It's worse than anything she could have ever predicted.

"Do you like sashimi?"

Accompanied by an unreadable stunned gaze that's striking similar to Detective Donner's, Kelly repeats, "Sashimi?"

"You know - raw fish, meat, and seafood. Do you like food like that?"

In consideration of how irrelevant the question is, and how urgently Kelly wants to get back to her apartment for a long hot bubble bath soak in the tube, Kelly admits truthfully, "I love sashimi. I eat is frequently in restaurants and prepare it at home whenever I can. And your second question is -?"

"Have you given any thought on starting a family?"

Almost vomiting into her mouth, Kelly gags out a reply, "You're not - you're not my type, Mr. Smith!"

The subject, after making a visible effort to twist his injured face into a vague approximation of sincere embarrassment, replies, "Oh! Sorry! No disrespect intended! I wasn't referring to myself. I just wanted to know how you felt about having a large family."

Still feeling queasy from disturbing imagery that's tying her stomach in knots, Kelly gives a humorous response, "Have you been talking to my mother? She had six kids and she won't be happy until I do too."

"And, will you?"

After a moment of thought, Kelly replies with complete honesty, "Why yes, maybe not six but I've always wanted a large family. That is, if I ever meet Mr. Right."

With the jubilant dancing body language of someone who'd just won the lottery, the subject repeats, 'Mr. Right!' repeatedly while he displays his creepiest smile and attempts to clap his hands despite the handcuffs.

Knowing from past experience he could keep this up indefinitely, Kelly breaks in with, "Now that my dietary preferences, and family planning issues are out of the way - CAN WE CONTINUE, PLEASE?!"

"By all means, but please hurry. Tempus fugit!"

After thinking He's not gonna say 'time flies' after a few years behind locked steel doors in the rubber-room hotel!, Kelly combines a facial expression of deep gratitude with a question, "Now that we have all that out of the way, what can you tell me about the brick?"

"Nothing."

"And why not?"

"It's a brick. What more is there to say?"

Holding her temper in check, Kelly screams silently in the privacy of her own mind Damn! I need to download a Google Glass Crazy to English translation app! I've heard about being literally minded, but this freakazoid is gonna make medical history after they lock him up!.

As she prepares to issue a rephrased version of the question, several lines of emergency-yellow hued text flash into existence upon her Google Glass monitor.

Heads Up! I've gotten two - correction - make it three top priority text-messages from someone named Ursula Brown in the last fifteen minutes. She's gonna have a cow if you don't identify the subject and send a full report upstairs to the CRG like a week ago. She wants your headset's address. Should I give it to her before she pops an aneurism?

Kelly's reply is a negative headshake so violent it almost launches the just mentioned device across the room. Even in the midst of performing this atypical act, she couldn't even begin to explain why she was reacting so forcefully to a work-related issue.

No problem. I'll try my best to give her the run around. Word to the wise, she's already threatened to come down here twice.

PS: you might want to switch to decaf - Tina :)

Luckily, the subject is still the main focus of attention in the room and, from all evidence, no one but Tina and Mr. Smith had observed her momentary loss of control. After a few deep breaths, Kelly continues her interrupted line of questioning, "Okay, how about this? If it's just a brick, it can't be important. Am I correct?"

"How can you say that? It's of critical, monumental, epic significance! It's one of the items my owner sent err - my partner sent me here to get. That's what makes it important!"

Kelly catches the quick substitution. Not knowing what possible significance this slip of the tongue might have, if any, she mentally files it away for later review.

Once again, Kelly has no choice but to let the conversation proceed along whatever path the subject's disturbed mind wants to send it, "And your partner needs this specific brick - why? It's not like the museum doesn't have a couple hundred thousand more. What's the deal with this particular one?"

Avoiding her eyes, much as a child might if caught with crumbs covering their face after being told not to touch the cookie jar, the subject hangs his head low and replies in a near whisper, "I - I can't tell you. Answering questions about my partner's affairs is not prudent."

Pointing at the open briefcase and a red fired-clay brick contained therein, Kelly asks, "Wouldn't it be easier to go to Home Depot and buy one? They're about two for a buck if I'm not mista -"

Clearly skirting on the edge of hysteria, the subject stands and interrupts by shouting, "NOT SAME! NOT SAME AT ALL! PARTNER WANTS PROOF- PARTNER MUST HAVE PROOF OF OWNERSHIP!"

Stretching plastic restraining cable ties between their hands, both uniformed officers seated in the back of the room rise. If not for being waved back to their chairs simultaneously by Detectives Donner and Kelly, Mr. Smith would be hogged tied and face down on the linoleum tiled floor in under thirty seconds.

As Kelly waits for the subject to calm down, her eyepiece monitor displays two items. Each applies to the matter at hand, and she can't help but agree with Tina's assessment of the situation.

Item 1:

Symptoms of Bipolar Disorder: People with bipolar I disorder experience extreme mood swings that can take 3 different forms: manic, depressive, and mixed episodes. Symptoms can include both a lowering of mood (depression) and an exaggerated elevation of mood (mania) - .

Item 2:

The vibrantly colored image of a circular 1 lb. 14 oz fruitcake decorated with native pecans, golden sweet pineapple, and lush papaya. Shipped from and sold by Colin Street Bakery, Deluxe (tm) for $27.95 -

In the time it takes Kelly review both items, Mr. Smith stops screaming and sits down. Apparently embarrassed by his explosive outburst, he lowers his head to avoid the eyes of everyone in the room and pleads at a barely audible volume, "Forgive me."

After a moment of silence he continues, "My partner doesn't react favorably to failure. Because of my last mistake, I was beginning to believe I'd never get to see - at this point the subject lifts his bound hands and waves them in a circle as if to encompass the entire room - this again."

Having had sufficient time to recuperate, Donner raps his knuckles atop the table. Satisfied the subject is now focused in his direction, he asks, "Are you here of your own free will?"

Nodding his chin in the direction of the two uniformed officers who, consciously or not, are still manipulating heavy duty single-use plastic restraints between their hands, the subject replies, "I was arrested by people like them."

After duplicating a thought Kelly previously had in a significantly more profane manner, Why are all the crazies I've got to deal with so goddamn literal?! , Donner restates the same question in a calm and soothing tone; "Did you come to Washington, DC of your own free will, Smith?"

As beads of sweat pop into existence upon his bruised face, the subject replies with a single word, "No. And please call me Mr. Smith."

Taking a moment to reevaluate his earliest impressions in response to current events, Donner has to contemplate the possibility he might be completely wrong. It wouldn't be the first time he'd encountered a criminal, or a criminal organization, taking advantage of a troubled mind to accomplish nefarious ends - whatever they might be.

In light of this fact, and the bizarre responses the subject has given to this point, Smith's most likely role in this affair seems clear: victim. And, quite possibly, as an innate cynical nature enhanced by a lengthy career in law enforcement can't avoid adding: a distraction?

But what could they be using him to hide?

Uncovering the puppet masters pulling Smith's strings would supersede anything else from now on. With this decision in mind, Donner asks his next question in a far less confrontational tone, "Where were you, Mr. Smith? Where do you come from?"

"I - I don't want to talk to you about that place!"

"You can tell me, can't you? We're all friends here."

"You won't want to know what's coming! None of you will!"

Thinking Finally, we're getting somewhere! , Donner prepares to push a little harder with his next question, "And why's that? Does it have anything to do with your being here?"

As has been the case so many times before, the subject's response to a question takes the shortest interpretational route, "In this room?"

Already prepared for this, Donner's reply is ready and instantly delivered, "No, Washington, DC. There must be a reason why your - partner - sent you here."

The subject's answer, in turn, is equally swift and surprises no one in the room, "I'm a purveyor of antiquities and -"

"Mr. Smith! Remember the brick. Why does your partner want it?"

Seemingly fighting an internal battle, the subject answers the question almost choking on each individual word, "Proof - partner must- must have proof. When others - come - when many others come, my partner must have - must have proof to claim ownership!"

Willing to keep the interrogation going, no matter how insane the subject's responses are likely to be, Donner asks the next logical question, "Ownership of what exactly?"

"THE MUSEUM!"

"The whole thing?"

"All of it! And everything inside! I don't want to be punished again!

Detective Donner, despite his intent to acquire information as rapidly as possible without confronting the subject's preposterous commentary, can't avoid replying sarcastically, "Seems like a lot of work for just one little museum."

To his surprise, not really, it has been that kind of day, the subject misinterprets the impulsive remark as something requiring a factual response, "Not small, very valuable. Many customers have been waiting for very long time. Must also remember - can't forget to -."

For someone able to soliloquize endlessly in response to the simplest question, the novel event of the suspect cutting himself off mid-sentence catches everyone in the room by surprise.

Donner pounces immediately, "Why did you stop? Were you sent here to do something else?"

In total silence, the subject scans every face on the other side of the room. After looking in Kelly's direction for a good fraction of a minute, he lowers his gaze to the tabletop and shudders as if overwhelmed by uncontrollable emotion.

On the assumption the talkative suspect was dispatched to Washington, DC to perform an act he's unwilling to divulge, Donner goes for the throat; figuratively speaking. With a tone of absolute certainty in his voice, he accuses the suspect of the worst act a hapless victim trying to survive at any cost might do, "You came here to kill someone? Or did you already do it?"

The effect is instantaneous and spectacular.

As if struck by high voltage, Smith violently straightens in his chair until he's facing the ceiling. His battered features become a bloodless mask of absolute mindless terror as his bound hands attempt to block his ears from a voice only he seems able to hear, "DON'T BELIEVE HIM! I WOULD NEVER DESTROY YOUR PROPERTY! NEVER! EVER! PLEASE DON'T PUNISH ME FOR A LIE!"

Thinking Shit! I broke him! , Donner has no choice but to flash his aide the talking fingers hand sign. Having reached another dead-end, maybe a little good cop - bad cop routine might keep this party going.

It takes Kelly a moment to jump in. Because, just seconds after the subject starts his meltdown in response to her superior's question, Tina had downloaded the image and sound clips from following item to her monitor and earpiece:

Traditional Cuckoo Clock Black Forest House with dancers [Kitchen & Home] Cuckoo Clock Black Forest House of the Black Forest with mill wheel, dancers and cuckoo Musical movement and quart movement with 12 melodies Height 36 cm width 31 cm manufactured in the Black forest. Price $429.00 & FREE Shipping -

Besides a mild inner chuckle, Kelly's thoughts are twofold: We really should reevaluate the idea of allowing teenagers, let alone this specific teenage computer nerd, anywhere near an active police investigation. And - Wow! People actually blow that kinda money on those stupid things?

After clearing her throat, she begins to speak in the same upbeat soothing tone a nursery school teacher might use to comfort a child after an encounter with the playground bully, "Detective Donner is just being a big meanie. No one here believes what he said."

Still on the cusp of a total mental breakdown, the subjects stops mouthing breathlessly, 'DON'T PUNISH ME FOR A LIE!' and lowers his eyes until he's looking straight at her. Still struggling to catch his breath, he asks in a halting manner, "True - is that true? You don't think - you won't tell anyone I'd ever - I'd ever damage my owner's merchandise?!"

Thinking My owner? Punish me? Damage merchandise? What's really going on here? , Kelly's unspoken reassessment of the situation almost makes her upset the subject further with her delayed affirmative response, "Of course not! A purveyor of antiquities and oddities don't damage their 'owner's?' merchandize. Or does he?"

"I'D NEVER - I'd never - never - do - that."

The subject's last assertion easily qualifies as the worst attempt at a falsehood Kelly has ever heard a rational non-drunk adult make, and her response is proof she doesn't believe him, "Is there something you're not telling us - telling me?"

His answer removes all doubt and ties a ribbon around it, "Ummm - no."

And one last try just for fun, "Pretty please?"

'No."

Recognizing the obvious futility of banging one's head against a brick wall, and John Smith in particular, Kelly takes a less direct and more personal route, "How do you feel? That black-eye is turning a shocking shade of eggplant-purple. Would you like some of those aspirins I offered before?"

With the swiftness of a flicked switch, the subject's mental and emotional state flips a hundred and eighty degrees. Showing absolutely no trace of confusion or distress, the Smith answers the question in his usual calm and courteous manner, "Thank you, but I must humbly refuse. My partner insists I not damage myself with toxic substances. My injuries will be remedied in due course before I take, that is, before we take our leave."

The transformation and odd response don't go unnoticed.

Causing a momentary flash of uncertainty to pass over the subject's face, Donner greets Mr. Smith with a hearty, "Welcome back!"

A look Donner himself shares a second later when the subject returns the greeting with an equally cheerful, "You too!"

Nearly choking on a torrent of profanity that once caused a blood-splattered serial killer and cannibal to blush, Donner takes several calming breaths before asking, "Have you been to the District before?"

Clearly suspicious of Detective Donner intent, the suspect takes a moment to examine the question before answering, "No, this is my first time here."

Succumbing to the irresistible urge rattle the subject's unflappable demeanor, Donner asks, "How's it going so far?"

Smith silently raises his left eyebrow, which, as luck would have it, is the only sizeable part of his face that's not bruised, swollen, discolored, scrapped, or scabbed over.

"Disregard. Rhetorical question. But while we're on the topic, please, in as few words as possible, could you explain why a White House secret service agent felt the need to turn your face into meatloaf?"

"No idea. I said hello. I touched his badge. And then I spoke his name."

Donner begins to lightly drum the fingers of both hands on the table. Yet another totally uncharacteristic, and unconscious, display his rapidly growing frustration.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"His reaction sounds a little excessive, but invading the personal space of uniformed armed security guards is never smart, Mr. Smith. You might want to find a less potentially hazardous way to entertain yourself."

"Not entertainment! My partner is not one to tolerate mistakes. I must verify the identity of any potential client or supplier before making formal contact. Otherwise the consequences I've already suffered will be far worse next time!"

"Do you really think the secret service would post someone to guard the White House gates with a fake badge? Buying one on the internet to impress gullible friends is one thing. Only a real idiot with a death wish would flash it around in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

After a lengthy moment of thought, and several times longer staring straight at Donner as if seeing him for the first time, the subject answers with a question of his own, "Could you show me your badge, detective?"

"My badge?"

"Yes, your badge. It's a gold-toned piece of appallingly cheap metal with a raised image of the United States Capital stamped on the front and the title ' First Lieutenant' engraved -."

"Yeah yeah, I know what it looks like!"

Willing to tolerate almost anything that'd keep the investigation moving forward, Donner reaches into his suit and extracts a large breast pocket leather wallet. Snapping it open with an unnecessary flourish that only someone who carries a similar symbol of authority could appreciate, he displays a badge that exactly fits the subject's description.

"SEE! IT'S YOU!"

Waving the open wallet, Donner responds in a near shout, "What the Hell does that mean?! That's my badge and my name is on the ID under it. Of course it's me!"

Sounding like an adult trying to instruct a grade school student on the nuances involved in Italian renaissance art appreciation, the subject replies in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, "True, but that doesn't mean it's you. A piece of base metal and scrap of worthless laminated paper have no history, no life, no - SOUL!

But now, because of your long term and deeply personal connection to those two items, they practically scream 'This is who I am! Lieutenant Lance Millhouse Donner!' and always will. Can I have them now?"

"NO!"

"I'll wait."

Ignoring the absurd request, and knowing full well he's about to provoke yet another insane steaming pile of mumbo-jumbo, Donner puts the wallet away and asks, "What does all - that - have to do with a security guard's Secret Service badge?

"It wasn't his. Not anymore."

After taking a moment to open and review the case file folder sitting on the tabletop, Donner asks, "So you're saying agent Toney Laverty is not agent Toney Laverty?"

"Well no, but he's also taken up Jihad under the nom de guerre Mohammed Ali Mustafa and changed his allegiance to something called the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. It's all very confusing. Anyone know what all that means?"

Breaking high security interrogation room protocols that prohibit any unencrypted electronic voice transmission from leaving the room without the expressed permission of her superiors, Kelly activates the Google Glass remote control and yells into the microphone, "TINA!"

A minute and twenty two seconds later the following message flashes across her Google Glass monitor in bright red letters:

Rang the WH security office restricted hotline number. The on-station Big Cheese is currently busy with Laverty's post-event debriefing. His second in command, Agent Saperstein, thinks we're all crazy over here, among other words I won't repeat, but will personally pass on a request for his boss to check into the name-thingy anyway. Expect a call back shortly. - TINA

Noticing Detective Donner is silently staring straight at her with an annoyed look on his face; Kelly lowers her head in a submissive gesture and taps the headset to indicate her interruption was solely due to a matter of great urgency.

Still showing a trace of his irritation, Donner turns his gaze away and asks the subject, "And you can tell all this by just touching his badge?"

"Me? Absolutely not! I would never presume such ability. As I've already told you, that responsibility is another's. I'm just reporting what my partner told me when I touched the badge."

"We're back to this invisible partner of yours, are we?"

"Invisible? Yes indeed! The unique conditions required for upper management to make a personal appearance are quite exceptional; and orders of magnitude more so if a mass gathering is being contemplated. The chance of being in the physical presence of such high numbers is the very meaning of the term -astronomical!"

Having no other leads to pursue at the moment, Donner decides to continue this line of questioning until it crumbles like a crash test auto against a concrete and steel barrier of pure insanity.

"Have you ever seen this 'partner' of yours?"

"With an open-mouth look of almost clownish distress, the subject sputters out a reply, "Good Heavens! I must - I must not have been paying proper attention to myself! How old - how old do you think I look?!"

Unable to resist the urge to yank the subject's chain, Donner smiles and adds an additional fifteen and more to his actual best guess of around fifty five - plus or minus two years.

"I'm usually pretty good at this. You're around - sixty five? Seventy?"

The subject's reaction to Donner's wiseass appraisal takes his distress level up a notch.

Totally oblivious to the other people in the room listening to his every word, Mr. Smith begins to speak his inner thoughts out loud, "This won't do! My owner must not see me like this! Letting property be so mishandled is simply not done! I must fix this while there is still time!"

Hampered by the handcuffs binding his wrists together, he awkwardly thrusts his hands deep into the open briefcase and the two uniformed policemen bolt from their chairs. Knowing anything even remotely hazardous had been removed before it was cleared for his use, Donner signals the officers to retreat and watches with great interest for what might transpire next.

He doesn't have to wait long.

Not that he had the slightest clue of its significance.

With a nearly unintelligible mumbled 'There you are!' Mr. Smith removes a scarf-long swatch of nearly transparent cloth from the briefcase and, struggling with the handcuffs that continue to restrict his movements, winds it around and around until his face, head, and neck are completely covered.

Unable to contain themselves, the two policemen break out into laughter - that is, until a glare from Detective Donner that could strip the paint off an oil tanker returns them to silence and wipes the smiles off their faces.

Just seconds away from grabbing the cloth and strangling the subject with it, Donner is distracted by a rapidly oscillating series of musical tones coming from his aide's earpiece. Noticing the surprised expression on Kelly's face, he waits silently to learn about whatever that damned toy is telling her.

There's a high priority call for Detective Donner on hold out here. The White House security office wants to talk to him, and only him, on secure-line two. They're threatening to come get him. They sound real upset.

By the way, my replacement got stuck with some last minute paperwork. He'll be here in ten to fifteen minutes. - Tina

With a measured neutral pitch an underling might use to disrupt a superior's work day with an extraneous matter, Kelly taps the Google Glass headset and hands him a hastily scribbled note, "Sorry for interruption, sir. It's your wife, again. She's on SL two. Something important came up at home that only - you - can deal with. Should I tell her to call back later?"

Struggling to read Kelly's rushed calligraphy, he almost turns the yellow post-it note around in a complete circle:

WH sec. office notified - Laverty in meeting with station chief. Second in command - Saperstein - will pass on message in re: Laverty name/loyalty question. There's a secure-line call on hold outside. It's most likely them.

In a tone any long-suffering henpecked husband would instantly recognize, Donner crumbles the note and replies, "No, I'll take it. My back is killing me, anyway. I need a good stretch. Please keep Mr. Smith entertained until I get back. I won't be long."

Except for the pain in his spine, and a thinly disguised order to keep the subject under control, the entire conversation had been a lie.

A district attorney outside his interrogation room demanding instant results during an election cycle was hardly noteworthy, except, quite regularly, as a source of amusement when the mood to pop an over-blown ego came upon him.

Getting pulled away from an active interrogation by someone high enough on the federal government food-chain to use an encrypted phone-line was unprecedented.

Not good.

Exiting the room, Detective Donner closes the door and moves rapidly towards the desk. Smiling as if urgent calls from the White House were a normal every day event, he places a hand atop the phone and turns on the charisma, "Hello again, Tina. It's been a rough day, huh? Could you give me a moment alone? These folks can be real sticklers for security."

"No problem, sir. I need to 'freshen up', anyway."

"That's fine. This shouldn't take more than couple minutes."

As Tina exits the room and closes the door behind her, the smile on Donner's face fades without a trace. After a few seconds to collect his thoughts, he lifts the receiver and inputs his security code to accept the call.

"Hello, Donner here."

"Why did someone over there call our office?"

No customary salutation. No name. No 'my rank is higher than yours', turf wars crappola. This call could be nothing but, not good.

"I'm working a case over here -"

Donner is almost instantly interrupted, "Yes, we know all about that. I ask again - why did you call our office?!"

"During the course of my interrogation, the loyalty of your agent Toney Laverty was called into question."

"In what way?"

Our suspect claims Laverty had joined ISIS."

Silence

"Hello?"

"Tell me, what 'exactly' did he say?"

With decades of practice giving expert testimony before city, state, and federal court judges, Donner recalls the subject's dubious allegations with almost word for word accuracy, "He said Laverty had taken up Jihad. That he was calling himself Mohammed Ali Mustafa, and that he'd joined forces with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant."

Silence

"You still there?"

"Yes."

Close to losing his patience, Donner attempts to go over the caller's head, "Put me through to your boss."

"Keep this to yourself, Donner. He's dead. We've got a team of EMT's working on him, but Saperstein isn't likely to survive either. Saperstein walked into Laverty's informal inquest to pass on your message. He was laughing and spoke to Mr. Harris just as the meeting was about to end.

Laverty went berserk. He stabbed both of them several times without warning and attempted to flee the building. Three other people were also injured, one critically, before an armed guard at the main doors took him down.

It's a madhouse down here. But at least now we know what triggered the event and can start rounding up all his known associates and contacts."

"Anything I can do for you?"

"Are you recording the interrogation?"

"Of course."

"Our office will contact you shortly. Be prepared to transmit a copy of everything you have over the secure-net. I can't stress the following more firmly, nothing, absolutely nothing, goes public without our authorization. Not one word. Is this understood, Detective Donner?"

"Understoo -"

Mid-word the line goes dead with the sound of a phone being slammed back into its cradle.

Donner repeats the act, without the noise or violence, just before the door opens and Tina walks back into the room.

"Can I come in?"

"Just finished. Tina?"

"Yes sir?"

Donner knocks over several plastic equine action figures as he searches the crowded desktop trying to locate a pencil and a scrap of paper. With a precise penmanship that puts anything Kelly can manage to shame, he jots down a memorized password that gives unfettered access to the interrogation room's current audio/video files.

"Please keep these numbers handy. Someone from the White House security office might call before we finish in there. If they ask for our AV log files, click on a folder named 'In-Room 2'. The first password will let your copy it; the second will allow you to upload that copy to whatever SN address they give you."

"Do I need authorization from upstairs or IT to do this?"

"No. We've already have an interdepartmental agreement on this case."

"Fine, oh wait! I'm going to be leaving soon!"

"No problem, Tina. Just pass it on your replacement, or have them call Detective Kelly if they need help."

"Okay, either way I'll let Detective Kelly know what happens."

"Good idea - Tina?"

"Sir?"

"Thanks for the great job, notwithstanding extenuating circumstances. It shouldn't have happened. Please accept my sincerest apology, again."

"No apology needed, I knew what I was getting into, but I never imagined it would be so rough so fast. Mom's been working here for years. She loves it, but some of the stuff she has to input into the system can be pretty disturbing at times."

"Give your mother my best. It's back to salt mines for me. Bye."

Feeling more like his normal self since before the interrogation started, Donner waves a cheerful farewell and turns away. The sense of 'normality' he's currently experiencing begins to fade rapidly as he opens the door and closes it behind him.

Kelly had been busy in his absence.

Fifteen minutes prior -

As Detective Donner closes the door behind him, Kelly turns her attention back to the subject, or, as she was she had just renamed him within her mind: The Mummy.

Under normal circumstances, a suspect undergoing interrogation was not allowed to mask their face in any way. Even casual levels of makeup could be prohibited if it interfered with an interrogator's ability to gauge a suspect's reaction to a line of questioning.

Not now.

To her great relief, Kelly had enjoyed watching the subject partially obscure all but his eyes beneath two yard's worth of gossamer-thin cloth embellished with fanciful dragon embroidery. If she'd wanted a career path dealing with people who looked liked they flown through a car's windshield face-first, she would have changed her law college major to medical.

She only wishes the cloth were far thicker.

"Feeling better now, John?"

"Immensely! And it's Mr. Smith!"

"You must know I can still, kinda, see you. Right?"

"That's of no consequence, dear lady."

Struggling to read one of the post-it notes she'd been scribbling upon, Kelly asks, "Would you mind clarifying a few minor points before Detective Donner returns?"

"My time is your time - for now."

"I'll take that as a yes. Moving on - could you tell me more about this 'partner' of yours? When did you meet and why have you stayed together for so long?"

"Wow! Those questions take me back to a period in my life I wouldn't wish on anyone!"

"How so? Were you sick? Poor? Family issues? Trouble with the law, perhaps?

"Worse. I'd been stuck in a dead-end job for what felt like forever. No respect. No sense of accomplishment. Not even a single word of praise to acknowledge my efforts or very existence.

Nothing but a pitiful pay envelope to support both wife and child delivered anomalously from my unseen betters. Illustrious leaders of an influential firm who'd never allow a person of my lowly station to advance beyond the post I'd faithfully, and efficiently, filled for nearly my entire working career.

Hopeless.

Worthless.

Forgotten.

My sole companion, the only steadfast friend I had left since my family passed away, a dispassionate disembodied voice that was, in all certainty, nothing but a fiction of my disintegrating mind. An invisible being that'd shadowed me since earliest youth, who now watched from afar as I toiled in a windowless closet-size office that no one but I ever entered.

Madness!

"Sounds grim, but why not try something different? Or simply quit?"

"Do you think I didn't want to? I tried, Heaven Above knows I did! I was laughed at. Ridiculed and threatened with immediate dismissal before my immediate superiors after, just once, I had the audacity to submit something I'd created for their approval.

If I left my situation would be infinitely worse. I'd have nothing."

Urgently seeking a source of information that doesn't involve the crazed musings of a head-case, Kelly tries an end run around the subject, "Do you have any family left? Someone else I can talk to, perhaps?"

"They're all gone from this Earth, detective."

"I'm so sorry for your loss. You have my deepest sympathy, Mr. Smith."

"Thank you."

"But tell me, what do you mean by 'submit'? Submit what?"

"Do you remember admitting, 'I even do a little writing on the side', Detective Kelly?"

"You make it sound like something best done behind locked doors between consenting adults. Lots of people write for fun, some even have the talent to take their pastime to the next level."

"And what level would 'that' be?"

"To get what most people desire most, I imagine. Fame. Recognition. Fortune. Take your pick or all of the above."

"That sounds easy enough. Just put quill to parchment, so to speak, and everything changes. Your words and thoughts take flight and gain a semblance of immortality. Read by a few, cherished by some, ignored by most, they touch the lives of others and, just perhaps, give the author those three things you claim most people desire. Is that right?"

"Yeah - pretty much. And all this matters to you, why?"

"I'm coming to that, young lady. But before I answer that question, please tell me this. That is the first nearly insurmountable obstacle any budding author must hurdle if he, or she, wants to distribute their works to the masses?"

"Talent? Or, more likely, the lack thereof?"

From the way the layers of winding cloth over his lower face crinkle and shift, it's obvious the subject is smiling widely under his impromptu bandages, "Close, but no."

"Being able to spell?"

"I really like you, detective. You're a rare and fun individual. I believe you're going to fit right in - eventually. And, no, spelling is not the answer."

Putting the subject's 'you're going to fit right in - eventually' aside for later examination, along with an ever-growing list of similar linguistic oddities, Kelly modifies the original question with one of her own, "From your reaction, I assume you're talking about something other than the internet?"

"Authors make money giving their labor away for free? That's amazing!"

"Good point, so the printed page is what you're referring to then?"

"Most assuredly!"

"We're talking about books?"

"Yes and nearly exclusively. Most other forms of print lack even a semblance of the impact they once held. Newspapers and magazines are a dying format for that very reason."

"Okay, books it is. Let me guess - an editor? Is that the roadblock to fame and fortune you're referring to?"

"DING! DING! DING! Close enough. We have a winner!"

"So being an editor is your deep dark secret, Mr. Smith?"

Not exactly, I worked for one. My job was to be the 'roadblock' you mentioned. I sat alone in my little room, day after day, year after year, decade after decade, digging through piles of unsolicited manuscripts searching for gems hidden within the mountains of dross that would bring profit to the firm.

My only avenue of self-expression, my sole proof of existence, was the scrawled purposely illegible signatures I placed upon the uncountable rejection slips I mailed back. Prohibited by my employers from ever offering the slightest justification for my disproval, or advice for improvement, I crushed the dreams of countless would-be authors striving for a better life than mine."

"So what did you do, Mr. Smith? Tender your resignation?"

"In a manner of speaking - I took a revolver my late predecessor had left behind in the back of an unused file cabinet. It was a task of only seconds to brush off nearly two and a half decades of dust and replace the old corroded cartridges.

After one last look in my wallet at the faded photograph of my departed family, I placed the rusty barrel in my mouth one crisp winter morning and pulled the trigger."

"As part of my training, Mr. Smith, I've been to more than a few suicides where someone undertook a similar act. You would be the first such I've ever had the opportunity to interrogate afterwards."

"I know. No one could've been more surprised than I. It took what felt like forever to remove the faulty cartridge and try again. No change. By the time I was done, I had a line of six shiny unexpended cartridges lined up like little tin soldiers atop my desk."

Despite falling into the category of, 'I'll believe it when I see it', Kelly doesn't challenge the impossible claim and responds with, "Normally I applaud perseverance, but in this instance I won't."

"Neither did the voice in my head."

"So it's back to talking about you unseen partner again?"

"Yes."

As per her training, Kelly maintains direct contact with Mr. Kelly's eyes whenever possible. If there is any sign of subterfuge hidden within his gaze, she can't see it. Normally, at this point, she'd stop wasting time and start a new line of inquiry - or simply take a breather and get a cup of coffee.

That option had flown the coup when Detective Donner ordered her to keep the subject 'entertained' before he left the room.

Unless she was willing to give sock puppet theater a try, or succumb to the growing urge to order the officers seated behind her to bounce him off the walls, her only option was to fake acceptance of the subject's patently bogus narrative and keep going, "Since your 'partner' time-shares space inside your head, the attempt to install six circular skylights in your skull without warning could be interpreted as an attempt to break the lease."

"I'll admit it didn't go well and leave it at that."

As Kelly sits in silence pondering how best to proceed, two muted beeps announce the arrival of yet another Google Glass memo from her aide outside:

Breaking news: I was wrong! Just when I thought we'd never hear back from Interpol before the next ice age, Great Britain beats France by a whole thirty seconds. Go team whatever!

I just finished skimming through everything they dug up on King Tut. If you want a good laugh, come outside and look at all this junk. Otherwise, beep me twice and I'll zap you some of the highlights.

Oh - and I dumped the weekend-old liquid death in the coffee maker and brewed a fresh pot. Doesn't anyone ever clean this thing but me? Yuck! I made it extra strong like your boss likes it. You'd better get some before the smell attracts the riffraff next door like last time.

PS: Europe sec net went dark again. I've tried everything, but I can't connect with any secure server on the approved satellite list. If it doesn't clear up in the next five minutes, I'll give the undersea cable another try.

Mr. Sun is getting cranky again - Tina.

Only momentarily distracted by Tina's message, Kelly asks, 'So what happened after you tried to empty your attic - so to speak? Did you go looking for an open window?"

"I never got the chance - and no, it's wasn't a window. There were enough cleaning chemicals in the broom closet down the hall to poison everyone in the building. It wouldn't be as fast or painless as a bullet, but a few ounces of liquid lye would get the job done."

"I'd take the bullet."

"I concur. I wasn't looking forward to the experience of feeling my insides dissolve. So you can imagine my surprise, and no small amount of relief, when the usually barely audible voice in my head clearly, and quite forcefully, extended the opportunity to leave my old life behind if I agreed to assume a position that'd just become vacant."

"And what type of 'position' would that be, Mr. Smith?"

"That's kind of hard to explain, detective. And I don't know if there's enough time left to even try. Could I have my watch back, please?"

"What does he want back, Kelly?" Donner asks as he closes the door and walks towards his seat. After a look of mild annoyance at the subject, and the cloth wound tightly around his head, he shrugs his shoulders and waits for this aide's response.

"Mr. Smith has volunteered to tell us more about his 'partner' if he gets his watch back."

Sitting and leaning back in his chair, Donner orders, "Give it to him."

Kelly reaches into the open briefcase and removes a small Ziploc evidence pouch. After breaking a red security seal with a finger nail, she removes a heavily worn wristwatch and drops it into the subject's outstretched hands.

With the deft movements of an act often performed, the subject positions the watch on his left wrist and closes the leather strap in a single unbroken motion despite the encumbrance of handcuffs.

Visibly comforted by its return, the subject examines the dial and announces, "How fortunate. We still have some time left. Please ask you questions and I will answer to the best of my ability."

Thinking Baby steps , Kelly puts forth the first of what she hopes will be a series of evermore probing questions; "You seem to be quite attached to that old watch. Any reason why?"

"This was the first thing I purchased after assuming my new position. You could say it symbolizes my break from a painful past."

"So you collect antique watches, Mr. Smith?"

"I'm a purveyor of antiquities and oddities, not a collector. I purchased this wristwatch new."

Kelly raises the empty plastic evidence bag and begins to read the attached tag: Contents: One (1) Rolex Yellow Gold and Stainless Steel Oyster Wristwatch Ref 5022 manufactured circa 1948. Radium dial - low level radiation source.

White paint on dial face heavily yellowed and tarnished. Original acrylic crystal has been replaced with crystalline substance of unknown origin, possibly artificially created. Metal case deeply scored and burnished by long-term wear. Winding stem also worn smooth by many years of use.

The watch is still functional and an accurate timepiece. Rear cover and inner mechanism shows signs of repeated and expert maintenance.

"What are you implying, detective?"

"If the person you replaced left behind a weapon, and you decided to use it upon yourself a quarter century later, you'd need to be early middle age at best. Let's say, fifty-five perhaps?"

"Very close and quite correct."

"And, after a failed suicide attempt that stretches credulity beyond the breaking point, an unseen entity offers you gainful employment - a better job - rather than let you kill yourself by other means at that age."

"You are good! Correct again."

"Do the math. That watch was made over seventy years ago. If I add that figure to the age you claim to have been when you quit, you couldn't be less than a hundred and twenty years old. That makes you a collector, or a liar. Which one is it?"

"Neither. I've never lied to you or Detective Donner. Not once."

Donner can't resist the temptation to irritate the subject with yet another snide assessment of his age, "I believe him, Kelly. He doesn't look a day over a hundred if you ask me."

And, once more, it was a waste of time and energy.

Turning slightly until he's facing Detective Donner directly, the subject nods his clothbound head once and replies with a cheerful, "Why thank you! I do try to keep fit, but my current appearance is, as always, chosen solely to best accomplish whatever task I'm charged with. To keep it as long as possible, I must affect what repairs I can before my owner becomes aware of the damage."

The renewed sense of calm control Donner recovered upon leaving the room, flew out the window just moments after the subject's rambling explanation

began, "Why should I care how often you go to the gym?!"

"I wasn't talking about exercise or calisthenics, Lance -"

"I DON'T GIVE A RAT'S -!"

Swiftly realizing this exchange would likely go on for some time, and wanting no part in any of it, Kelly presses the communication alert button on her remote twice. Within a matter of seconds, the screaming fades into the background of her mind as page after page of tightly packed PDF's files scroll across her Google Glass monitor.

Tina hadn't been exaggerating in the slightest. All these so-called 'immediate attention required' files couldn't be anything other than a joke perpetuated against the FBI by British and French Interpol.

Thinking, How stupid do these people think we are? she skips over several pages of barely comprehensible intelligence jargon, and spends several minutes closely examining nearly a dozen grainy black and white surveillance camera photographs.

Pictures are said to be worth a thousand words. But, as if often the case in this era of widely available computerized image altering technology, their value is quite frequently - zip.

With each click of her handheld remote, another image of Mr. John Smith, or more accurately, Mr. John Smiths, came into being. Carrying a very large black leather suitcase he, or rather they, had been photographed in the vicinity of several famous British and French museums.

From the British Museum in London, to the Louvre in Paris, he had visited each and had, according to the accompanying reports, tried to interact with anyone willing to listen to his street-peddling sales pitch in the local lingo.

As international inter-agency rivalry jokes go, this one was pathetic and well below the standards of some she had seen before. Kelly herself had done far better creating and dispersing sexual-predator wanted posters of her least-favorite college professors all over campus.

Tenured male, and the occasional female, faculty member who apparently didn't understand the meaning of the word 'no', or had little control over their wandering hands.

But she had to admit whoever photo-shopped the subject's image into cities and museums across much of the Western Europe had done an excellent job.

As to be expected, overlooked important details are the Achilles' heel of an inept counterfeit image maker. The comedian, or comedians, responsible for all this phony photographic evidence had not only forgotten to include Mr. Smith's 'inimitable' briefcase; they had also incorrectly altered the time and date stamps imprinted into each picture.

Many of the images she examined would have her believe the subject had been photographed hundreds of miles apart, and in different countries, on the same day. And a few could only be interpreted to signify he'd been present in two or three of these locations at exactly the same time.

Once again - pathetic! And damned lazy, too!

As shouted accusations of falsehoods, and quieter protestations of innocence continue to bounce back and forth, Kelly uses her remote to select several of the clearest images and upload them to the encrypted Wi-Fi enabled printer sitting next to her aide's desk. After a quickly thumbed memo to Tina, 'Beep me when they're done' she reluctantly returns her attention to the room.

If nothing else, her diary could use a few more page-long unrepeatable words-of-wisdom to spice up the tell-all autobiography she planned to write upon ending her stint in law enforcement. As Donner was presently responsible for the vast majority, she might have to offer him co-authorship billing when that moment came due.

First mental note to self: talk to a lawyer.

Second mental note to self: hire an ol' salty sailor to translate some of the more risqué paragraph-long obscenities into something less vulgar and more acceptable to a book publisher - if that's even possible.

In the clear realization that nothing good was likely to come from interrupting her boss, but having no other choice if she was uphold her professional responsibilities, Kelly raises her hand and coughs lightly.

"WHAT THE FUCK NOW!"

"Thinking That went better than I expected!, she announces, "Some late breaking evidence from Interpol just arrived. It's outside. Do you want to get it, sir?"

Barely in control of himself, Donner jumps out of his chair and moves towards the door, "No, I'll do it myself!" Fortunately for the building maintenance supervisor, the door was strong enough to avoid damage when he slammed it shut behind him.

Having lost her best chance of getting a mug of fresh coffee today - a rare event in a building filled with caffeine addicted prima donnas who wouldn't clean or refill a Mr. Coffee if their lives depended upon it - she turns her attention towards the subject in time to see him shrug his shoulders and ask, "Was it something I said?"

Smiling inwardly at stimulating mental image of two scandalously unclad muscular sweaty cops engaged in a strenuous game of squash, with the subject playing the part of the ball, Kelly shuffles her notes and asks, "Before your suicide attempt, you expressed reservations about the reality of the voice residing in your head. What made you change your mind?"

"Proof."

"What kind of proof can an invisible and intangible voice provide?"

"A lifelong victim of my tidy nature, I couldn't resist brushing everything off my desktop and into a drawer before starting my final rendezvous with a jug of drain cleaner. As I rose from my desk for the last time, my soon-to-be partner offered a one-time-only never-to-be-repeated opportunity to expand my horizons."

"The voice in your head was offering you a few tabs of LSD?"

"No, I was offered the chance to rejoin my family. To be whole once more."

"And if you refuse the offer? What then? The voice will start humming Christmas jingles twenty four slash seven until you agree?"

"No. I would be allowed to die. My partner would step aside and let time return to its ordained path. The mashed remains of my brain would stain the ceiling."

"They're gone, Mr. Smith. Let's say I believe everything you've said about your life, your job, the loss of your family, and the suicide attempt. You must realize what's gone is gone forever. No one can make time go backwards."

"That's very close to what I said. Almost word for word. I got angry. I started to scream that nothing, absolutely nothing, would stand between me and ending my life if I wasn't given proof that very instant."

"What happened?"

"It was provided, Detective Kelly."

"How so? A vision, perhaps? A dark tunnel with a bright light at the end? Your dead family calling out from the past with welcoming arms outstretched? You're an intelligent man, Mr. Smith. Clearly you must realize something is wrong with your perception of reality. Let us help you."

"The bullets went off."

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"I asked for proof and my partner provided. One by one, in the exact order and timing it should have shot me in the head; the unloaded gun in the top drawer of my desk went off and made six holes in the ceiling."

"Your imagination at work. Nothing more."

"That's what I thought until my next door neighbors, all three of them, poured into the room to investigate the noise. In a matter of seconds, I had more visitors crammed into my little office than I'd seen at one time in the previous twenty odd years.

And none of us, including the Pinkerton security team from the front lobby, could explain how a rusty old revolver could fire six times upwards through my desk from inside a locked drawer. Or how, after having accomplished such an impossible deed, it could unload itself and leave six warm expended shell casings inside that same drawer."

"And after all that, you quit?"

"Yes."

"Okay, now it's my turn to ask for proof. Can I speak to your former employers, or maybe talk to the people who entered your office and witnessed the event?"

"Alas, I can't. The firm went defunct more than a score of years ago. My employer, my fellow employees, the security team itself, have likewise long since gone under - as in six feet under."

Not really expecting anything more tangible than a madman's wild claims, Kelly responds with a terse, "No proof then. Why am I not surprised?"

"Would my watch do?"

Removing the wristwatch with the same deft movements he originally displayed upon donning it, the subject spins it around and extends his handcuffed hands across the table. From only inches away, Kelly can see a row of very familiar well-worn shapes expertly carved into the dull and tarnished stainless steel case: six bullets.

As he replaces the watch on his left wrist, the subject explains, "I had that done by a jeweler the same day I purchased the watch. Sometimes, when I wonder if I made the right decision, I look at them."

Confident everything she'd just heard was nothing more than a spur of the moment 'The Usual Suspects' type con, Kelly discounts the wristwatch as proof of anything.

Mentally giving Mr. Smith a middle-finger-salute, she looks down at her stack of hurriedly scrawled notes and issues her next question, "You've used the word owner instead of partner interchangeably several times, care to explain?"

"Everything belongs to someone - something."

"Are we talking about philosophy?"

Staring straight at her, the subject tilts his head slightly to the right as if unsure whether her expression matches the seriousness of her tone.

After a moment of silence, Mr. Smith expands upon his earlier response, "No, reality. Did you not broker a significant portion of your limited lifespan and freewill to this police organization? Doesn't this arrangement confer upon it a certain level of ownership over you?"

"That's not the same thing! I'm paid to be here. I want to be here. If I have to follow the rules, so be it. It's nothing more than that."

"What if you wouldn't be 'here' if not for someone else? What if every single strand of DNA on this planet owes its existence to the power of someone - something - who planted the first living cell from which all others owe their existence?

And, what if the original provider of that tiny speck of life desires to reclaim their property, in part or in whole, and everything which came about because of it? Surely that confers a certain degree of ownersh-?"

"Okay, that's enough. You've moved beyond philosophy into the realm of religion. Am I right?"

"Those are your terms, my dear. Not mine."

"Let's move on, shall we? You've mentioned losing your family several times. What can you tell me about them?"

"I loved my wife. I loved my children. An illness came. She got sick. The kids got sick. They all died. I didn't. My partner brought us back together. What else is there to say, detective?"

"Surely you understand my doubts. Death, by its very definition, is permanent separation. It's an integral part of the marriage vows if you recall. We can only enjoy what time we have, Mr. Smith. As my late uncle use to say, 'the arrow of time only points in one direction'."

"My employers would beg to differ."

"Has anyone ever accused you of membership in a religious cult?"

"Yes, often in fact." After a moment spent touching his bruised and battered face through the cloth covering, the subject adds, "And quite strenuously on occasion if truth be told. It's all part of the job."

"Do you take their judgment, forceful or not, as an insult?"

"No. Not really. My family and I are still here. They are gone or soon will be. That's proof enough in my ledger to confirm how invalid their insults were."

"Did you have any part in their being - gone?"

"NO! NEVER! DON'T EVER SAY THAT AGAIN!"

"Please forgive me. As you pointed out yourself, 'It's all part of the job. Mine included. Don't you agree?"

The subject doesn't immediately respond. If past experience is any guide, it won't be more than a few minutes before the subject's uncontrollable urge to run-off-at-the-mouth kicks in. Just long enough, Kelly hopes, to scan through her notes and plan how best to proceed.

Batten down the hatches! Lower the main sail! A bad Nor'easter is coming your way!

Donner took one look at those pictures you sent to the printer and exploded! Chernobyl was an outdoor barbeque compared to how he spent the last ten minutes yelling into his phone.

I don't know what set him off, but he called the State Department and the White House to complain about something Interpol did. I'm pretty sure whoever picked up on the other end has bleeding eardrums by now.

Wait! It gets better! He just threatened to fly to France and grab the sword off their building emblem and shove it up Interpol Directeur principal something or other's _ _ _. I'll let you fill in the blank.

I'm so glad I'll be going home soon. You people are crazy! - TINA

PS: Your boss isn't human. He drank two huge mugs of the garage floor sweepings government suppliers call coffee, black with no sugar, and he didn't die! The moochers next door in cryptology polished off the rest. It's all gone. :_(

\- Here he comes! Nice knowing you!

The words 'knowing you!' had barely scrolled off the Google Glass screen before Donner storms into the room and, once more, tests the structural integrity of the door hinges when he slams it shut behind him.

Having lost her best chance to satisfy a serious caffeine addiction in the near future, Kelly silently prays her stay in this room will be short lived.

It will be shorter than anything she could have possibly envisioned.

Without a single glance in her direction, Donner throws a small stack of extremely manhandled papers before the subject's handcuffed hands. As they come to rest scattered across much of the metal table top, he demands at a near yell, "Care to explain this?!"

Still upset from his just ended clash with Kelly, Mr. Smith doesn't give any indication of even noticing the pages resting before him, or sliding off the table and onto the floor. Peeking through a small gap in the silk bindings masking his face, his attention remains almost hypnotically set upon the watch strapped to his wrist.

"I'M TALKING TO YOU, ASSHOLE!"

In an instant change of mood and focus so typical of his unstable mental state, the subject turns away from his watch and looks up at a red faced, Detective Donner, "Hello! My name is Mr. John Smith. What can I do for you?"

Gritting his teeth so hard he can hear his jaw creak, Donner points at the scattered papers and demands, "Tell me what you know about that!"

After awkwardly bending down to gather those that fell to the floor, the subject spends nearly a minute straightening and collating the crumpled papers into a semi-neat pile. Only then does he begin to examine each thoroughly for a minute or two before moving onto the next.

A task he'd likely happily continue until the Second Coming if not interrupted by an even angrier demand, "TURN THEM THE FUCK OVER!"

After an unconvincing sounding explanation, "Oh, that's how it works. I suspected I was missing something." Mr. Smith rotates the pile around and freezes solid. Showing every sign of astonishment and extreme distress, he begins to flip from one page to the next with ever increasing speed.

With the turning of the last page, the playful teasing attitude he'd maintained since entering the interrogation room, with a few noteworthy exceptions, evaporates. The casual persona of a low level working man nobody with crippling psychological 'issues' likewise goes up in smoke.

In a flash his voice and body language express diametrically opposed emotions combined into a single explosive package: anger and shock. Screaming at the top of his lungs, "HOW DARE THEY?! I'M COPYRIGHTED!" the subject begins to pound the small metal table with his bound hands.

Once again, with swift efficiency, the two uniformed police officers rise to deal with the situation. And, like before, are waved back to their chairs by Detective Donner. This moment of was exactly what he'd been waiting for since entering the room, and he wasn't going to let two ham-fisted cops ruin it for him.

Donner had thrown the stack of papers at the subject more out of fury than any thought of their validity or use in this interrogation. But something about these unquestionably falsified images had blindsided the subject during the height of a period of clarity - as much the subject ever approached that state.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Donner decides to stay on target. With a little more pressure, and luck, some useful information might still be garnered before the subject takes another bullet train to goofy town. And, maybe, with ever more luck, the last two frustrating hours won't go down in his personal case log as the biggest damned waste of all time!

"It's a shame you didn't tell us about your octuplet twin brothers, Mr. Smith. We could've rented a Greyhound bus and invited them out to dinner when we finish here."

The reaction was everything, and more, that he could've wished for.

"NOT BROTHERS! UNAUTHORIZED COPIES! I'VE BEEN STOLEN!"

Struggling to maintain a serious tone in his voice, Donner responds with, "Sounds like a serious crime. Shouldn't you contact someone in charge? Your 'partner' sounds like a good place to start."

Whatever hopes Donner held the subject would ask for a phone are soon dashed.

"Yes! Why didn't I think of that? I need a pen!"

"I really don't think we have time to wait for a letter. Are you sure a phone won't do?"

"I NEED A PEN!"

Rooting around in her purse, Kelly eventually locates and tries to hand over a fine-line black Sharpie, "How about this one?"

With a wave of his hand, the subject rejects it, "Do you have one that's red? Normally I'd use something else, but I've bled enough for one day."

Not liking the disturbing imagery hidden within his response, but just as dedicated to finding the truth as her boss, Kelly digs around again in her purse until she finds a near-new tube of bright red lipstick, "How about this?"

"Excellent!"

Donner, once again sitting in his chair, removes a blank legal-length sheet of paper from one of his file folders and extends to within the subject's reach, "Since you're in the mood to write, would this help?"

It wouldn't be the first time a suspect tendered his, or her, confession in something other than ballpoint pen. For this very reason the large box of crayons he keeps in his precinct desk sees occasional use.

With his attention riveted upon the tabletop, Mr. Smith replies with a distracted sounding, "Thank you, but that won't be necessary.", as he begins to draw.

Taking great care to avoid damage to something that was never designed to fill the role of a writing implement, he expertly creates a near perfect circle that covers much of the small table's surface.

After taking a moment to inspect his handiwork, he rapidly fills in the circle with an increasingly complex series of lines and symbols. None of which make any sense to anyone in the room besides himself.

Kelly, an avid fan of all things fantasy and / or horror from an early age, can't help noticing and commenting on a clear discrepancy, "All those lines and squiggles don't even come close to making a pentagram."

Not even slowing or looking up from his work, the subject replies in a straightforward matter of fact tone, "It's a long distance call."

Thinking Professionalism be damned! , and fully aware her next question will undoubtedly elicit a hysterically bizarre response, and a likely rebuke from her immediate superior, Kelly covers her mouth after asking, "And who are you trying to contact?" to avoid laughing out loud.

"The main office".

It doesn't work.

Even clamped shut, she can't keep a progressively louder string of strangled girlish nerd snorts - which in her case sound like a newborn kitten being slowly crushed to death by a hungry snake - from escaping from in-between her tightly clinched fingers.

Verging on an explosive loss of self control, Donner struggles to maintain the concentration necessary to closely examine the subject's artistic endeavor. Something about all those lines and symbols were striking a cord and reminding him of something he'd just seen - THE CIRCLE AROUND THAT BOOK IN THE HOTEL ROOM! IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME! I'VE GOT HIM NOW!

The last few hours had felt like an eternity, but now, at long last, the subject had provided incontrovertible proof of his implication in a truly horrendous crime. Whether that connection came from being a willing participant, or just an innocent head case who accidently witnessed some aspect of the planning, was the question to be answered from this point forward.

Thinking Time to tie up some loose ends! , Donner begins a series of questions aimed at uncovering and locating the subject's criminal co-conspirators, if any, "So, this 'main office' is far away, huh?"

Totally committed to the task at hand, the subject draws several smaller circles, a squashed hand-size isosceles trapezoid, a pair of stick-figure humanoid mirror-image pictographs, and something that bears a remarkable similarity to an Escher staircase before replying, "Very far."

No one has ever called Donner a quitter.

"Do you live nearby?"

After two more circles, and an object that couldn't be anything other than a half-eaten submarine sandwich, Mr. Smith looks up just long enough to reply, "Absolutely not! I'd never want my family anywhere near there!"

"So you live outside a big city? Some suburbs I might know, perhaps."

Watching intently as the subject works, Donner notes the lipstick is wearing down fast. It lasts just long enough to create three more indecipherable squiggle-ish things - snakes, fish, are those tentacles?

The subject, apparently satisfied with his imaginative artistic efforts, puts the spent makeup container down and answers Detective Donner's question, "No city. No suburbs. No towns. There's nothing like those anywhere."

"So you live far out in the country? It must be nice."

"We like it - my family and I."

Like a dog searching a well-chewed bone for a missed tidbit, Donner continues in his attempt to obtain whatever fragment of background info the subject might yet accidently divulge, "I don't imagine you get many visitors being so isolated. Anyone interesting ever stop by?"

"I wouldn't call them 'interesting'. Extremely dangerous would be more accurate. The nearby live-product barriers occasionally fail and the inhabitants leave their habitat. I've been asking our owners to move those things away from our area for what seems like forever!"

"Owners?"

Not really wanting to, but seeing no other choice, Kelly breaks in for the purpose of bringing her superior up to speed on a conversation held out of his presence.

"He believes we're all property, sir. In essence - you, I, and everything else living on Earth belongs to his 'partner or partners', and it's been that way since the beginning of time.

"Religion?"

"That's what I said."

"Mr. Smith? Is Detective Kelly right?"

The subject looks down at his wristwatch and replies, "No, but please continue. We have eight minutes and twenty seconds left."

Not really interested in having a philosophical debate, or feeling any real need to ask a loony why he's doing a countdown long after the nuke bomb scare was declared bogus, Donner is still duty-bound to continue his work.

Of all the reasons used to spill blood, religion, or more accurately, those who will twist religion to support their goals, is among the most powerful. As he knew well from painful personal experience, any criminal investigator who didn't factor in the beliefs of the faithful as a possible motive is a fool.

"So we're property? The whole kit and kaboodle? Is that right?"

The subject looks up from his watch just long enough to answer, "Yes, until the end of time."

"Nothing lasts forever."

With the cadence a member of the clergy might use to recite an oft repeated religious tract, Mr. Smith replies with, "They were, they are, and they always will be. Those that have never known life cannot truly die."

"And your partner owns you?"

"True, except it's more of a corporate business office reference library kind of agreement now. I'm checked out whenever needed and left in peace otherwise. My partner is going to be ever so cross when news arrives to prove knockoff copies where made before I was reshelved!"

Talking in metaphors is a common practice when suspects, and children, grasp for straws. When every lie falls flat of its face, when the last contrived piece of evidence is proved false, many perps attribute their reprehensible acts to a divine or profane source. In essence, the interrogation room equivalent of 'God / Satan made me do it'.

"And where would that 'shelf' be located?"

"Back home, where I live with my family of course."

"And that mess you made on my nice clean table was for -?"

"I need to fax these pictures."

Donner sees an opening in yet another crazed request. It would be far from the first time a perp offered to 'prove his innocence' by performing an impossible act. A private video he'd made years ago, wherein a mind-blown Angel Dust addict lies on the floor and attempts to walk up a wall, is still a New Year's party office favorite.

When this particular attempt fails, as it must, Smith's entire worldview would almost certainly crash and burn. And for whatever time it takes to reform, with a little luck, he'd be vulnerable to any question put before him.

Without saying a word, Donner waves his open left hand in the subject's direction to symbolize his approval. Devoid of any conscious awareness of what his right hand is doing, it remains tightly clinched around the small pistol hidden deep within a front jacket pocket.

Following a series of steps that closely mimic the operation a standard tabletop fax machine, Mr. Smith removes the uppermost page from the printer-created images stacked to his left, and rests it face down in the exact center of the circle he'd drawn. After a span of two or three seconds, he turns the page over and creates the beginnings of a new stack besides the old.

The task now complete, he starts anew with the next sheet from the first stack with the casual competence of an office worker performing a routine daily activity.

By the time he has 'faxed' the fourth page, Donner's patience is rapidly approaching the thickness of a single atom.

"Could we speed things up?"

"I'd rather not."

"Why's that?"

"These papers are wrinkled. They may get jammed."

Donner's response in an eminently predictable, "DO IT!"

"If you insist..."

After lifting and tapping the stack to even the bottom edges as best he can, the subject carefully lowers the twenty-odd pages left into the circle and crosses his arms.

"Well?"

"These things take time. That's a great deal of information to process."

"Can we get this done before the guys with the butterfly net shows up?"

Turning his cloth covered head around to face Detective Donner directly, the subject responds with, "All done! I'm going to hit 'SEND' now."

"Whatever!"

Instead of pressing an imaginary button to continue the childish playacting to its logical conclusion, Mr. Smith raises his hands straight up, or as best he can due to the handcuffs binding his wrists together, and begins to - chant?

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh C'th-"

"What the FLYING FUCK do you think you're doing!?"

Mr. Smith stops and lowers his arms. Sounding both anxious and apologetic, he answers the question, "Please don't interrupt, detective. I too am a professional. Unlike that careless cribber Alhazred, I have a reputation to preserve."

= After a short pause =

"Contacting the wrong party can have extremely negative consequences. You never know what err - who - might answer!"

Showing a little unease in her own voice, Kelly turns towards her superior, "Sir?"

"What?"

"Shouldn't we call the on-site team in? They've had direct contact with the hotel crime scene. If we keep going we might compromise their investigation. They're going to want some quality Vis-à-vis time with Mr. Smith about Alhazred."

In an act that clearly displays his mounting inner turmoil, Detective Donner replies with, "They can have him when I'm done! Can you understand that?!"

Swallowing an atypical angry retort to a perceived grave insult, Kelly mentally begins to compose a request for transfer to another department. After taking a moment to calm herself, she answers with the most neutral tone she can manage, "Yes sir."

"Go ahead. Finish it!"

The subject lifts his arms once again and begins anew:

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh C'thulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh C'thulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh C'thulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

After the third repetition, the subject lowers his arms and goes silent. Showing every sign of ill composed patience, he rests his hands palm-down atop the table and spreads his fingers while keeping his gaze fixed upon the unmoving stack of papers.

The poor abused atom representing the last remnant of Detective Donner's patience dies in a blazing explosion of purest agony, "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!"

The subject gives no visual indication of having heard the shouted question. Unmoving and from all appearances holding his breath, his eyes don't even blink. Several seconds later, as Detective Donner rises from his chair to give his question a more physical attribute, Mr. Smith gives out a long contented sigh.

"THEY GOT IT!"

Donner's heated mood is mollified slightly by the laughable claim. Seeing no better option, he decides to keep playing along in anticipation of the subject's inevitable mental collapse, "They did? All of it, even the 'wrinkled' sheets?"

His eyes still glued to the table, and the convoluted graffiti he'd drawn atop much of it in red lipstick, the subject carefully lifts and puts aside the stack of sheets without smudging a single line. Only then does he respond to the question, "Yes, even those."

"Excellent! So what happens now'?

The subject scarcely acknowledges the question or the person putting it forth. Still looking down at the table as if mesmerized by his own creative talent, his response ends abruptly midsentence, "I've always been reassigned before this point. Without instructions I have no idea how to proceed. I transmitted my message marked extreme urgency, so the answer to your question shouldn't take too long - that was quick!"

Feeling much the fool, Donner catches himself staring intently at the tabletop; as if any of those short-bus kindergarten scribbles could actually do anything. A quick glance at all the sheepish grins around the room somewhat mollifies his own sense of embarrassment.

Thinking, At least I wasn't the only one to fall for his song and dance routine! Donner keeps going by asking in quasi-serious tone, "What happened? Did a page get jammed up inside?"

In yet another example of his infuriatingly literal mind, the subject replies, "No, they replied almost instantly. Normally it takes forever to get a quorum together to do the simplest thing. Bureaucracies can be so infuriating! I've had to wait weeks sometimes to get a simple expense account refund approved."

"Mr. Smith?"

"Yes, Detective err - Lance?"

"If they sent something back, shouldn't we be seeing it?"

The subject bends forward until his cloth-covered nose is only inches above the mishmash of tangled red lines. Mumbling softly as his eyes trace every loop and turn, he answers Donner's question, "I don't know what's wrong. I've done this a million times. Please give me a moment to check."

Tina takes this period of silence as an opportunity to contact, Kelly via her Google Glass headset eyepiece:

Something nearby is trying to access the Wi-Fi hub. Two more attempts and the sec comm. monitor will go into auto shutdown mode. Only IT can reinitialize it and they're already ticked off. Two service calls in one day is about their limit. Did you leave anything running in your purse? - Tina. :-0

Her attention returns to the room in time to hear, "Well, Mr. Smith. Have you figured out what went wrong? Did you forget to hit 'receive', perhaps?"

As to be expected, the subject doesn't recognize the nature Donner's taunts and, unbelievably, takes them at face value, "Still working on it. Everything seems to be powered up and ready to go, but nothing's happening on the output side."

With that said, Mr. Smith finishes his close up inspection of the inner circle. Moving his focus outwards and to his left, he begins to examine a series of symbols that have more than a passing similarity to a fleet of pyramids flying in a V-shape formation over a mountain range.

Mumbling nonsense 'Slot A goes into tab B, Omega before Gamma, rock beats scissors. And so on. And so forth. And that too.' , his eyes follow a tangle of dotted lines leading away from one of the pyramids. Stopping at a point where they make contact with the inner circle, he closes his eyes and shouts, "I'M SUCH AN IDIOT!"

Pushing his fury aside, Donner can't resist yet another dig at the subject's expense, "Planning a 'Mental Defect' defense plea, are we? You might want to rethink that idea. Those rarely go over well in court."

Yet again, as he so often done in the past, the subject shows no interest in the comment or any evidence in having heard it. Like a cheap plastic Bobble Head figurine on a speeding vehicle's dashboard, his cloth-shrouded head twists from side to side as his eyes inspect every square inch of the interrogation room's floor, ceiling, and walls.

Only a second away from being the recipient of yet another snide remark, 'If you're planning to paint the place, I'm partial to oyster white', Mr. Smith opens his eyes and begins to scan the room's other inhabitants.

He finally settles upon Detective Donner and asks, "Could you, or anyone else here, spare about a pound or two of metal - the shinier the better?"

Surprised by the odd request, and reflexively squeezing the weapon in his pocket, Donner needs a couple seconds to think up a substitute sarcastic remark, "Making a spoon to tunnel you way out won't work. The only thing beneath this floor is the holding cell you're going back to when we're done here."

"Oh, it's nothing like that. I just realized the source of the problem."

"I see. So you've figured it out, have you?" Detective Donner replies while wearing the blankest cop-face his facial features can manage. Almost anyone above the age of five would instantly recognize their bull-shit allowance has gone dry.

That is, anyone except for Mr. Smith apparently.

"It was really silly of me. I forgot to load toner."

"Toner?"

"That's correct. It's that stuff a fax needs to -"

"I know what toner is! But what does that have to do with shiny metal?"

"That's what I need to make this work. I can't receive a message without it. For the most legible results pure gold and silver are the most efficient, but any shiny metal will do in a pinch."

Detective Donner makes a show of patting his pockets. After a few seconds he announces in a loud mocking tone, "Nada! Anyone else have a pocket full of gold or silver? Kelly? How about you?"

Sensing her superior's change in mood, Kelly swallows her still seething ire and replies in kind, "Sorry, I forgot to bring my other purse. Should I go home and get it? I'm sure to have a brick or two of gold in that one."

"No need. Let me check with Officers Lamont and Harris. How about it guys? Did either of you stock up on gold or silver coins before leaving the precinct house?"

Under orders not to involve themselves in the interrogation beyond their security roles, both men keep their replies as succinct as possible, "No sir. What he said, sir."

"What a shame. We're all out. Perhaps now you can explain what this whole charade was all about, Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH!"

Many situations annoy Donner no end. Being ignored ranks towards the top of the list. A position the subject is about to surpass as he single-mindedly examines the handcuffs binding his wrists together.

Before Donner can start yelling something hideously profane, and totally unsuitable for inclusion in the transcribed permanent record, the subject breaks out of his apparent trance and looks him straight in the eyes, "Do you mind if I use these?"

Red faced and with a blood pressure in the danger zone, Donner leans back in his chair. Sweating profusely beneath a tightly buttoned shirt, vest, necktie and suit, he takes several deep calming breaths while regretting having drunk that second cup of coffee. Only after he feels the flush leave his face does he ask, "What for, a paperweight?"

On a side note - When Lance Millhouse Donner graduated at the top of his class, many fellow students and faculty members took great pride in signing his college yearbook. None of the comments summed up his true nature more than the one placed nearest his photo by his fiancé and soon to be wife, 'Most likely to insult the Grim Reaper when he comes calling.'

"Why no, I have lots of those. I need it to make this thing work."

Donner practically lives in his office. Almost anything was better than returning to an empty house full of painful memories. Now he could think of nothing better. He'd endure anything to get out of this room and away from this nut.

Thinking I need a break. This idiot is no threat. Lieutenant Jenkins owes me a favor. He and Kelly can keep digging into whatever he knows while I go out for a quick meal. , Detective Donner gives his approval, "By all means. Please proceed. But fair warning, you get them covered in lipstick you're gonna have to clean them."

"Thank you. I will be careful."

Taking the comical warning literally, as he does most things, the subject extends his bound hands outwards until they're hovering slightly more than a foot above the largest circle. After clearing his throat twice, Smith begins a chant that's distinctly different from the one he'd sung before.

Anáil nathrach, orth' bháis's bethad, do chél dénmha

Anáil nathrach, orth' bháis's bethad, do chél dénmha

Anáil nathrach, orth' bháis's bethad, do chél dénmha

Matters snowball rapidly from this point on.

The handcuffs encircling the subject's wrists had been crafted of highest quality stainless steel. Protected by a thick layer of rust and wear resistant black Teflon, it was but one of the many pieces of equipment issued to Officer Samuel P. Harris when he was accepted within the DC police department seven years prior to today's date.

In all likelihood this coating, and the equally corrosion resistant metal it helped protect, would endure for Officer Harris' entire career. And, if not lost or damaged by forces well beyond those warranted by the manufacturer, the handcuffs would likely look remarkably unchanged over the careers of the next two or three officers to carry them.

So it's hard to fault anyone watching the subject's antics for being caught completely by surprise. When, for only a moment, the handcuffs are obscured from sight by deep ebony fog.

Gathering speed with each passing second thereafter, a high tech coating meant to survive unaffected by many years of weather and handling decays at an unimaginable rate. Like a miniature rain shower, oxidized Teflon dust falls from the handcuffs to land in a small pile upon the tabletop.

The metal it once protected soon follows.

As if bathed in incredibly strong acid, inch-thick stainless steel buffed to a mirror-like gloss becomes dull and deeply pockmarked. Rust stains explode into existence and race like flames to engulf both cuffs and the chain binding them together.

Having been made of the same metal, but thinner, the chain was the first to fail. Barely recognizable under a thick reddish gray patina of corrosion, each link parts company with its neighbor and falls away. No long held together by anything other than empty air, the rapidly disintegrating cuffs quickly join the metallic debris covering the table.

A mechanical sounding click and a high pitched explosive detonation.

A small bullet whizzes towards the subject's bowed head and misses by inches.

A young woman's high-pitched full-throated scream of absolute terror.

Another small bullet sails past the subject and buries itself into the cinderblock wall behind him.

The floor-shaking thuds of two heavy unconscious human bodies falling out of their chairs.

And then another bullet. A third small hole in the wall.

A raged deep breath. An even louder female scream.

And another bullet.

And another.

And another.

Detective Lance Donner, the pride of the DC police department, was doing his best to shout, and failing, in deep physical pain. Backing away silently from the table with a look of primordial fear distorting his features, he keeps pulling the trigger long after his weapon runs dry and his spine bangs into a wall.

His razor sharp mind, weakened by hours of unaccustomed nervous tension and confusion, was now nothing but a seething maelstrom of ancient flight or fight instincts. Trapped in a closed space less than ten feet from what it perceives to be an existential threat, the most primitive parts of his brain have but one solution to offer: kill it!

Instincts apparently aren't good shots.

Not even lifting his eyes in reaction as each shockwave echoes around the room, the subject keeps attentive watch over the mound of metallic dust as it starts to melt as if exposed blast furnace temperatures.

Moving under the influence of unknown forces, three streams of shiny liquid metal flow away from the center of the table and pool, solidify, and cease all movement.

Except for the red lipstick lines drawn upon it, the table is absolutely clean and undamaged. Every speck of metal has become part of three nearly half-inch thick individual rectangular shapes slightly larger than standard playing cards.

Smith's gaze still doesn't waver for an instant.

Mimicking the pre-digital era process familiar to diehard Polaroid film users, a wide spectrum of bizarre images become visible upon each highly polished surface over the course of roughly sixty seconds. Showing a remarkable similarity to those the subject had drawn upon the table, each mirror-bright stainless steel rectangle gradually fills from corner to corner with deeply etched geometric shapes and pictographs.

Stacking them atop each other, the subject's eyes flicker across the topmost card in no particular pattern. In the manner of someone translating a vaguely understood foreign language into their own tongue, his lips remain in constant motion beneath the thin cloth covering his face.

It's not until he has finished 'reading' does his attention return to the room. Several times while he attended to more important matters, six times in fact, a loud noise had can come close to disturbing his concentration.

The room has changed drastically since he'd seen it last.

Furthest away, and just below the two-way mirror, two uniformed police officers lie on the floor in an unconscious tangle of limbs, law enforcement equipment, and folding metal chairs. With partly open unseeing eyes, their legs and arms repeatedly twitch as if suffering a nightmare from which they can't awaken.

A little closer and to his left, Detective Kelly stares back silently. Unable to command her body to rise from her chair, the young woman's facial features waver between vacuous surprise, and a rapidly dawning terrified awareness of her dire situation.

In essence: that she, and all her fellow officers, would soon suffer in real life the same horrible fate countless victims her dearly loved fiction authors had described so eloquently in their work. A sad future translated into modern terms involving dismembered body parts, heavy-duty Ziploc plastic bags, and several shelves in a coroner's evidence freezer.

Last, but definitely not least, is Detective Donner. Equally silent, and leaning heavily on the wall across the table from Detective Kelly, he struggles to simultaneously keep upright and maintain his empty weapon aimed in the general direction of Smith's head.

Curious to see what the detective could possibly have been shooting at, and oblivious to the obvious, the subject spins around in his chair. To his surprise a near-perfect halo of bullet holes surrounds the shadow - his shadow - the powerful light fixture on the ceiling is casting on the wall behind him.

"Déjà vu - all over again."

This simple sentence, consisting of but a few words given in an impassive neutral tone, could probably have gone down in history as the least emotional response ever recorded to mark someone's escape from death.

It won't happen. There is no time left for such frivolous endeavors.

Kelly's still functioning Google Glass monitor flashes blue for an instant and dies. The attached earpiece remains functional just long enough for her to hear Tina scream "KEEP AWAY!" in fright before the transmission is cut off and the room plunges into near absolute darkness.

Gradually, two large emergency battery-powered lights mounted in opposite corners of the room, which should have immediately provided a significant degree of illumination in response to any electrical power interruption, click on. Their combined output barely equals what a half dozen small birthday candles could create.

Screams, and a rapidly growing crescendo of handgun fire, almost instantly filters into the room from all directions. It's as if every armed agent and employee in the FBI building had suddenly found a reason to discharge their weapon.

It quickly grows louder.

In a matter of mere seconds, hidden armories empty and the deep throb of individual shotgun blasts, and the rapid clatter of military grade automatic rifles, join the handgun fire. What sounds like a full blown war swiftly degrades into individual weapon blasts which go silent within heartbeats. The only sounds left are running feet, muffled screams, and shouted pleas for mercy.

Total silence devours even these shortly thereafter.

Humming a toneless melody, Smith ignores the other inhabitants of the room and the horrific sounds invading it. Totally engrossed in reorganizing the contents of his briefcase, he repetitively empties and refills each compartment until everything has been returned to a place of his liking.

All his efforts show little to no noticeable benefit. Even the most attentive of observers would be hard pressed to explain what kind of order, if any, had been achieved.

In the end, when every compartment is refilled, he removes his wristwatch and tucks it away in an empty side pocket with great care. Gently, as if to apologize for its previous mistreatment, he closes the briefcase and pats the handle as one might the head of a favored child before placing it on the floor besides his chair.

Only a small heavily worn stone sphere remains atop the table.

Lifting it to eye level, he angrily wags a finger as if admonishing an allegedly-housebroken pet after an 'accident' on a brand new rug, "Now you decide to work?! I appreciate the effort, but couldn't you have done something when my face was getting - STOMPED ON?! If you hadn't already been paid for, I'd drop you on the sidewalk from the roof of this building!"

Having a one way conversation with an inanimate object is a common human foible. Quite often an automobile, a computer, or some other collection of lifeless electrical / mechanical parts will be castigated verbally, and frequently physically, for failing to perform an assigned function to their user's satisfaction.

This meaningless activity is of little note when done in private, or in the company of close friends and family. Screaming hysterically at a toaster that'd just burnt and crushed your last Pop Tart in the company break room is something all together different, and worthy of sideways glances and public ridicule.

Threatening a carved stone ball, and pressing it afterwards to an ear as if expecting an apology, goes well beyond the bell curve of normal mental health. Acting as if you're getting one, well, that just nuts.

"Right! Interference! What kind of excuse is -?"

Smith stops talking and lifts a hand to his bandaged face. In an agitated tone he complains out loud, "Not again! Can't those brainless stooges get anything right?! And what does that say about me? I fell for it!"

Pushing back his chair, he rises to his feet and places the stone ball, not very carefully, or gently, back on the table. After turning around until his back is towards the other occupants of the room, he uses both hands to swiftly unwind the lengthy ribbon of cloth concealing his head and face.

After the last few inches fall away, he tears the thin material into several pieces and casts it aside atop the table. Slowly, and with great care, he cautiously prods his features with several fingertips as if searching for sore spots. Finding none, he sighs in relief and turns to examine his face in the almost wall-wide mirror on the other side of the room.

It's not a face.

No, that's not exactly true. It - is - a face. It's just not human.

Humans don't have tiny reptilian scales covering large portions of their foreheads, checks, and chins in a full spectrum of vivid clashing colors. A blunt muzzle filled with sharp teeth is even less common.

And let's not even mention golf ball size red eyes with slit-shaped pupils, and a Mohawk consisting of colorful finger-length feather-like spines poking through sparse graying hair.

"No damage done! But those idiots are going to rue the day they bother me again! Good gracious! I sure look awful in this orange suit; don't they have anything in blue around here?"

"Mo - mon- monst- monster!"

Automatically, on par with breathing or maintaining a beating heart, he responds by repeating his name and job description, "I'm Mr. John Smith, a purveyor of antiquities and oddities" in response to the accusation. Barely aware that he had spoken, Smith looks around the dimly lit room to discover where the pejorative judgment of his looks had come from.

The two officers are still sprawled on the floor and their spastic body movements continue unabated. Whether they're genuinely unconscious or simply asleep, the end result doesn't change. Neither is likely to awaken from their troubled slumber anytime soon.

Detective Donner is slowly losing his battle with gravity. Soon he will fall into a seated position with his back against a wall. No longer able to keep his arm extended, what little strength he can manifest is spent in repeatedly pulling the trigger of his empty weapon.

By process of elimination only one likely candidate remains.

"Hello! How are you doing, Detective Kelly?"

Feeling far worse than the one, and only, time she'd experienced what getting zapped with a Taser was like during her academy training, her entire body was a mass of pins, needles, and near total paralysis. In class, surrounded by her laughing fellow trainees, struggling to keep her bladder under control had been a horrible if short-lived experience.

Her current condition was orders of magnitude more intense and showed no signs of improvement. The likelihood she'd shortly experience total bladder containment failure didn't rank high on her short list of pressing concerns, and slipping off her chair to land in a motionless heap on the floor even less.

Top billing on her hit parade of life or death issues was the prison suit wearing Japanese monster movie knockoff, with a mouth filled with pointy teeth, standing beside her.

Kelly can feel the first trickle of an impending flood start as twin nictitating membranes swipe across the expressionless blood-red eyes inspecting her body. The worry expressed in the subject's voice - its voice - provides little comfort as new predatory teeth combine with a still lengthening jaw and tongue to ask, "I trust you are uninjured?"

Still seated but unable to do anything other than move her eyes, drool, and wet herself, Kelly's lips remain frozen and silent. The sum total of her energy reserves had been expended calling what once was a weak-minded middle-age street vendor nobody a monster. Considering her present situation, it probably wasn't the wisest course of action she'd ever undertaken.

Not that what comes next is any better.

Watching from within a body only slightly more lively than a clothes store dummy, Kelly stares in disbelief as the few remaining human portions of the subject's face laboriously twist into a reasonably acceptable expression of deep concern.

Everything else he's concurrently doing - the high pitched rasping coughs coming from deep inside his chest, and the rhythmic lifting and lowering of crest feathers - she just fervently prays aren't a sign of hunger. Or, what's even worse, some manner of animalistic pre-mating sexual display.

Reaching outwards with a hand rapidly losing both thumb and little finger, he draws a pin-prick of blood when he jabs the razor sharp point of a claw-tipped scale-covered index finger into Kelly's right bicep. The almost birdlike chirping within his oddly proportioned ribcage quickly grows in volume and frequency.

Clearly agitated by the total absence of any physical reaction, jaws that'd almost doubled in length since Kelly first saw them open wide to speak in a greatly distorted, but recognizably distressed tone, "Are you injured? Please, tell me you're not!"

By no choice of her own, Kelly remains silent. Fortunately, telepathy hadn't been part of the 'creature-feature' makeover Smith had been gifted with.

If it had, the coarse unladylike words she was sending, words she'd overheard Detective Donner utter on many occasions, would probably cause the thick stubby feather-covered tail forcing its way through the seat of his pants to fall off in shock.

Giving an outwardly appearance of deep thought, the still transforming former human knells besides Kelly's chair and raises a blood-stained claw to the side of his tapering skull.

Idly scratching the scales surrounding a small hole where once hung an ear, he starts complaining out loud, "This is so unfair! I should've been long gone by now! I'm sure to be blamed if anything happens to this Product. And I had some vacation time with the family coming up real soon, too! Who knows what will -?"

This growing list of grievances is interrupted when three metal cards slip out of his heavily clawed tridactyl grasp. Startled by the loud clatter of metal hitting ceramic tiles, he jumps back leaving the torn remnants of cheap disposable slip-on footwear behind.

They are no longer needed.

His human feet are gone. Replaced by three heavy black claws attached to three thick digitigrade toes, there is no way he could ever don them again. Even if he could, nothing so flimsily made could survive his floor-shaking landing, or his steadily increasing mass that has well surpassed a quarter ton.

Returning to the problem at hand, he stands fully upright on powerful looking birdlike legs and ponders on how best to proceed. Nearing the midway point of its full growth, the heavy tail idly swinging behind him knocks over an empty chair and bangs into the small table.

Surprised yet again by another unexpected sound, he spins in place to investigate the noise and his tail whips over Kelly's head missing by only inches. As he watches a second tail-struck chair sail across the dimly lit room, his expanding torso bends forwards and locks into position.

Feeling immensely more comfortable as his spine assumes an almost perfectly horizontal orientation, and grows a cape of multi-colored feathers to match his scales, he scans the entire room with only the slightest twist of his lengthening neck and widely spaced eyes.

Mumbling to himself in a combination of human words, avian chirps, and reptilian hisses, he bends his neck sideways until his muzzle swings out of view allowing an eye to closely examine the red lines drawn all over the nearby tabletop, "Red lines. Red lines? RED LINES! GOOD GRIEF, I FORGOT TO TURN IT OFF!"

Leaving torn prison trousers and undergarments behind on the floor, Smith needs only one effortless step to close the three foot wide gap. With both clawed hands hovering over the table, the large curved talons taking the place of his human big toes tap in time to the slow rhythmic swaying of his still growing tail.

With the purely reflexive ease of a frequently repeated task - in much the same way animals instinctively perform most physical acts required to survive and keep their species going - both claws snap outward in a blur of motion and interlock tightly around a good portion of the discarded cloth.

Confident his thumb-less grasp is secure, he repeatedly drags the bundle across the table as his genitals finish their transformation into something vaguely crocodilian and retract behind a tightly sealed scaled slit.

Smeared beyond any possible recognition, all the drawings have been reduced to a big red circular blur. Dropping the soiled cloth back onto the table, he lifts both lipstick-stained claws and attempts to wipe them clean with a long thin pale pink tongue.

Swiftly recognizing the futility of the task, and apparently not liking the waxy taste, he shrugs shoulders that have almost seamlessly sunk into his upper torso and swings his head from side to side until every part of the room has be thoroughly examined.

Nothing has changed.

None of the humans show any signs of recovering from his mistake. And, even worse, might even be dying if he hadn't acted in time.

Clearly troubled that its actions haven't elicited the desired effect, the creature once known as Mr. John Smith loses control. In a fluid motion combining grace and immense power, he shifts his stance to one clawed foot and, with all his great weight behind the blow, kicks the last unoccupied chair still standing across the room with the other.

Nearly bent in two, the chair bounces off a wall and falls besides the unmoving policemen with a claw-size hole driven through its steel backrest.

The transformation is now complete. The overly talkative eccentric middle-age purveyor of antiquities and oddities is gone without a trace. In his stead is what any young child seeing its bones in a museum would instantly, and mistakenly, call a dinosaur.

Detective Kelly had been correct. Even the least qualified paleontologist ever to graduate college would call it something else: a monster.

Combining a slew of vastly different, and frequently conflicting physical attributes, this 'thing' was an affront to all creation. An unholy perversion of evolution's crowning predatory dinosaurian achievement, it contained within its genetic makeup the most frightening features of the entire Dromaeosauridae line.

And, far, far worse, it held within its disproportionally huge domed skull the most dangerous intellect to have ever evolved on planet Earth: Human.

That brain, and the mind within, is not happy.

Not by a long shot.

Growing more distressed with each passing second, florescent-red eyes instinctively and repeatedly examine the surrounding area for anything that might constitute a threat.

On the cusp of losing control a second time, with likely dire consequences to follow for everyone trapped within the room, his intellect is brought back to the forefront of his profoundly altered brain when Detective Donner's death-grip fails and he drops his empty weapon to the floor.

Trying to smile despite immobile reptilian features incapable of performing the act, Smith jerks his large head upwards and lets out four loud screeches no human throat could ever reproduce. Only one can be translated into something approaching speech, "IT WORKED!"

In a single effortless leap he lands besides Detective Kelly and bends his long neck down. Performing a catchall gesture that would be instantly recognizable to bird and reptile fanciers everywhere, he spends several seconds silently, and quite violently, nodding his heavy skull with wide open jaws to express - something - in her general direction.

Feeling warmth and movement progressively returning to her near-comatose body, Kelly closes her eyes and prays he'll continue long enough for her to recover and escape the room in one piece.

No such luck.

"ARE you - FEELING - better?"

Kelly hesitantly takes a peek and instantly regrets it.

A single bright red eye, the size of a toddler's fist, is well within reach if she could move or was crazy enough to try. Instead of risking another sharp stab to the arm, she licks bone dry lips and answers at a near whisper, "Fine! I'm fine! No damage done!"

Sounding much like a parrot, if they grew to eight feet in height and a near half ton in weight, the ex-Mr. Smith instantly replies in a flood of barely comprehensible and oddly emphasized high-pitched words.

"I was SO - worried! It was all - ALL my fault. I - forgot HOW difficult it - it IS for the uninitiated TO have any CONTACT with the - Owners, EVEN indirectly. I broke the - CONNECTION. You - should BE feeling - all of you should be feeling BETTER - soon. Please forgive - ME!

Having no desire to keep a conversation going with something with more teeth than a chainsaw, Kelly keeps her reply as short and non-confrontational as possible, "Think nothing of it. Accidents can happen to anyone."

"Thank YOU - dear lady, I WILL be back. I - still have MUCH to do."

With that said two heavily feathered arms, ending in immense bird-like talons, unfold from his equally feathered sides and drop towards the floor. After a few seconds of fumbling, and annoyed chirping growls, he finally manages to recover the three small flat metal objects he'd previously dropped.

His toe claws clicking loudly on contact with ceramic tiles, he shakes the floor with each stride until the two policemen are within reach. With a flash of motion, a reptilian hand holding a metal card gingerly between two scaled digits drives a bloodstained third, tipped with a long black claw, deep into their bodies.

Following another bout of strenuous head shaking, he thoroughly reexamines the card's incised imagery before lowering his head to lick each heavily bleeding and potentially fatal wound. Almost instantly the life-threatening punctures seal and vanish without a trace.

To better witness the fruits of his actions, he lifts his heavy head high above the floor as the miraculous recovery the two policemen have just experienced from their injuries turns into a nightmare.

Much as a pebble will create ever-widening ripples if tossed into a pond, dark gray scales and thick ebony-hued leathery skin explode outwards from where he had stabbed them. As Kelly watches in dismay and revulsion from across the darkened room, their fingers and arms wither away to near nothingness.

Child size and lacking all but two tiny near useless clawed fingers, each miniature arm and hand flexes wildly under the control of a nervous system attempting to meld with strange, and vastly different, streams of sensory input. Chaos reigns as even more divergent signals begin to arrive from more distant parts of their rapidly changing bodies.

Dropping the card nearby as if no longer needed, or much interested in what will happen from this point onwards, he cautiously turns away mindful of his long tail and the nearby wall. Behind him both morphing policemen are beginning to awaken and will eventually attempt to rise.

Neither will succeed.

Getting upright with only tiny arms to support a massive torso and enormous toothy skull will take time, training, and lots of practice to accomplish. All of which will be physically impossible until the tails, leisurely extending in fits and starts from their rears, gain enough mass to counterbalance the rest of their bulky and rapidly changing bodies.

The extinct prehistoric T-Rex, the flower of the entire Tyrannosaurid lineage, has been described in many ways: Huge, hideous, combative, supremely powerful, and the unchallenged monarch of all it surveyed. No one has ever said their species was graceful or light on their feet.

Stopping just long enough for another bout of vigorous head-bobbing, he snaps his head around in a tight mammal-neck breaking arc and screeches, "Be good NOW! AND - no back TALKING! Remember, YOUR - Owner is ALWAYS right!" before leaving the former-policemen to their fate.

Chirping lightly with each clicking step, he resumes his interrupted course and strides forward until he's within arm-reach - claw reach - of the slowly rousing Detective Donner.

"HELLO! How's IT - falling?!"

Donner doesn't reply. Anyone even slightly acquainted with him would know it's not by choice. Feeling like his blood had been sucked out and exchanged with used motor oil and battery acid, he can do little more than sit on the hard floor and wonder when he'd gone insane. Well, if truth be told, curse a little under his breath, too.

How else could he explain the huge squawking mother ******* pigeon, with arms, clawed hands and a long lizard tail no less, looking down at him and trying to start up a conversation with outdated banter?

"Wait, THAT'S - not right! It's not FALLING, the - word IS hanging. It's so HARD to keep - MY repertoire OF cliché's and COMMON colloquialisms up TO date. They CHANGE - so fast.

Go away FOR a few - YEARS and everything IS - so different. And DON'T even - think of GETTING me started when I HAVE to - fill in FOR someone OUTSIDE my usual territory!"

Thinking Yeah, it's him. No doubt about it!, Donner starts to spider-walk his left hand, as furtively as minimal neuromuscular control and near total numbness will allow, towards a pants pocket and the spare magazine within. Having just seen the impossible happen to his security team, he had to save Kelly before it was too late no matter the cost.

One way or the other.

After only two or three inches of travel, a long string of something wet, sticky, and semi-translucent lands on this hand and pools around several fingers.

The idea had undoubtedly been good, and no fault could be placed against his plan or the laudable sense of self-sacrifice that set it into motion, but really? Crafted by nearly two hundred million years of the most brutal evolutionary pressure imaginable for maximum movement detection and image resolution, 'furtively' means squat when pitted against eyes like his.

Larger than those of any bird that has ever existed, a pair of unblinking predatory eyes rooted in a skull armed with drooling dagger-shaped teeth is hovering above him from a height of only five feet. Giving new meaning to the phrase 'I'm going to watch you like a hawk', these same eyes direct a curved foot talon longer than a human hand to flick Donner's weapon far across the room.

Struggling to hold slippery metal objects with clawed digits more suited for grappling with large dangerous prey, Smith simultaneously keeps one eye on Donner while he scans each card with the other. Spinning them around in seemingly random directions as he 'reads', it quickly becomes apparent something is not going to plan.

"This IS - odd. LET me - let me - LEAVE this invoice FOR LAST."

Stepping over two immobile outstretched human legs, he tosses it away in passing and walks off in Kelly's direction screeching what sounds vaguely like "The BALL - DOESN'T like YOU!"

Defying common sense, probability, and the laws of physics, the tumbling metal card bounces around the room like a shotgun propelled ping pong ball. After impacting a concrete ceiling leaving a shallow divot, it ricochets off two walls, scratches the edge of a steel table, and ends its flight by arcing high into the air before falling straight down atop Donner's crotch.

Struck in the only part of his body that has fully regained normal sensation, he can do nothing but grunt in agony. With his vision obscured by a galaxy of twirling stars, he has little doubt he'd just received payback for trying to shoot that &^#*$ * offspring of Big Bird and a Komodo dragon.

At Kelly's side once more, Smith folds long muscular legs until he's seated comfortably on a thick tail and the bony protrusion attached to his pelvis. With both claws clasped over tightly closed eyes, his rigid body language gives off an impression of deep concentration.

The reason for the odd pose soon becomes apparent when terrifying jaws open and an easily recognizable human voice deep within his feathered chest asks,

"Can you - understand me better now?"

Weighing her limited options, Kelly ponders the situation:

Talk to him and see what happens. Possible outcome: unknown.

Keep silent until he gets bored and goes away. It never fails with my cat, Buttons. Unknown datum: Do dinosaurs get bored? Likely outcome: I get turned into something straight out of a Discovery Channel Dinosaur documentary.

Wildcard: When will this thing get hungry?

Talking wins hands down.

"Yes, much better."

Speaking quickly, Smith's feathered body is visibly trembling as he replies, "Listen carefully. Not much time. Hard to think - think if not doing what Owner wants. Owner very - busy now. I can sense it. Talk - we can talk in private."

Purely by feel, a huge clawed hand fumbles around until it finds and wraps around Kelly's neck, "Did you see what I did to those two - those two over there?"

Scared nearly out of her mind by the sensation of warm scales and blood soaked claws touching her skin, the best she can do is nod.

"I'll take that - as a yes. Quickly, before Harvesters get - get here. Do you - want that to happen to you? Or would you rather I kill - kill you now? Speak up!"

Kelly replies at a near whisper, "Kill me?"

"Yes. Make it look like an accident. Keep eyes closed. Owner very busy. Can't see - what this Property doing. Accidents happen. I am - valuable. Good Property. Owner will think you - human - attacked me. Self defense, no control when I am - this. Must protect Owner property - me."

A detective to the last, Kelly asks, "But why?"

"Owners - change body, change mind. You still have choice. I - do not."

"Can you tell me who these Owners are?"

"Know very little. Hear rumors from other Property like me. They say Owners - came to Earth long ago. Nothing here but bare stone and empty water. Owners are creators - creators of life. Owners seed life on many empty worlds, or worlds they made empty. Many Customers want this life. Much profit. Influence. Power. Survival.

Long ago Owners made mistake. The star - the Sun - change. Drive Owners away before completion of first harvest. Owners hurt by Sun. Poison to them.

Product left behind survives in many unexpected forms. Evolve. Become smarter. Owners want. But travel too dangerous - too expensive. No profit. Take only samples from time to time. Samples like me.

Whenever Sun allows, Owners - send Harvesters to collect Product - plants and animals - before star heals. Harvesters leave little behind. Owners not care if Harvesters destroyed. Harvesters - produced in whatever numbers required from local - materials. Expendable. They now come for humans - for all huummmaansssssss."

After a long painful sounding hiss, Smith stops talking. With one claw still wrapped around Kelly's neck, he opens the other and drives three sharp claw

tips into the side of his head.

Close to having her neck snapped by his violent movements, Kelly screams, "STOP! YOU'RE HURTING ME!"

"I - I stop. Sorry. My Owner - sending orders to Harvesters nearby. I hear, but not sending orders to me. I almost opened my eyes. But I'm - I'm still in control. We - we have time. To talk before -"

"Okay. No harm done. You just surprised me. Let's see if I got this straight, you said the 'Owners' have been here several times before. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"How come we have no record of that?"

With three thin trickles of blood dripping down the side of his brightly scale and feather covered head, Smith answers; his voice and grammar gradually becoming a little less stilted with each sentence. Apparently the pain from the injury was helping him focus his thoughts, "There are - records, dear lady.

I remember several manuscripts - manuscripts I reviewed. They mentioned - periods in the past when life nearly vanished or was greatly - diminished on Earth. One story author, who couldn't spell to save his life, listed five such occasions. I believe they're called - extinction events - now."

Kelly came very close to claiming, 'That's impossible!' before she realized how insanely silly that'd be. The word had lost any trace of meaning the moment she'd witnessed a man start his transformation into a living breathing dinosaur. Still, she had to dig deeper for more information while there was still time, "Are you saying the 'Owners' have been coming here for around five hundred million years?"

"No. It's been much longer than that. Like I tried to tell Detective Donner - tell you - time means very little to them. Owners come from - outside time - outside space. A place we can never go and they can leave only rarely.

No matter how long it takes, they will always come back. Even - the risk of death or potential conflict with powerful beings like themselves already here, won't stop the Owners. Too many Customers wanting Product like - me."

"They want dinosaurs?"

"No. Owners want smart dinosaurs. Owners have many Customers. I've seen - only a few of them. Ancient races endowed with staggering - intelligence, power and wealth - beyond human comprehension. After countless eons of endless warfare and conflict, many are dying - out.

Consumers pay Owners vast sums for Product like me - or you - to do their bidding. They need an endless stream of new Product - stronger workers, smarter workers - to keep their civilizations going, and for other things.

Owners are not good creators. Life out - there is rare. Most of their - efforts fail and the planets they possess turn back into barren rock or sterile water before something useful - something profitable - is ever born. Owners never stop trying.

The last time Owners visited Earth - for a prolonged span of time - dinosaurs ruled the planet: Strong, powerful, reproduce - quickly, a wide - spectrum of assorted sizes and species, but stupid. Not useful - for anything but Consumer food. Just - like all their previous visits, the trip is a big waste of - energy and profit.

With no expectation of - significant future sales, Owners leave and create Harvesters to collect whatever they can before - the Sun destroys them all. As usual, the Harvesters - strip the planet bare. Dinosaurs and many others go extinct.

Big surprise! Consumers - buy them all! Want more. Owners start breeding new - stock on many worlds. Never - made such profit and demand keeps rising. Never ends. Never slows. Dinosaurs of all kinds are everywhere now."

Despite her perilous situation, Kelly's nerdish curiosity gets the best of her, "Why, are they eating them?"

"Yes, but only - in the very beginning. Not now, far too valuable. Many worlds - would fall into chaos if dinosaurs didn't - run them. Space explorers, builders, scientists, traders, farmers, artists, worshippers, raise and protect - Consumer young. We do it all - and more for our Owners and their Customers."

Thinking I've been around Donner way too long! Kelly replies with a potentially perilous observation, "No offence intended. But wouldn't the average dinosaur lose a battle of wits against a houseplant?"

"None taken. You are correct. Owners were - frantic to increase production and profits. There- was no choice. Ancient Races have key to Owner survival. Owners - must have Product to sell. Or else.

Owners start to experiment on tiny primitive mammals the - dinosaurs never managed to hunt out - of existence. They thought a little stolen brainpower - help them better adapt to conditions - on different worlds. Or at least stop them - from killing each other before Consumers could eat them.

Initial results were - encouraging. Profits went through the roof. Greed - ran rampant. Owners made each new generation - even smarter. In pursuit of - survival and profit they became blind to - possible consequences.

Product lines became proto-sentient - an overwhelming army of preprogrammed tool and weapon users without conscience - or self-control. Many civilizations - species older than life on Earth, their former Consumers, wiped out in the blink of an eye.

I don't know if Owners have word for - Oops!

Fortune smiled on Owners. Without - warning, just as today, while hundreds of Customer worlds were burning, the Sun allowed brief passage to this - Solar System. Owners took an - insane gamble and came in - great numbers.

Most were - destroyed along with their Harvesters, but enough - returned with sufficient samples - to fix the problem and revolutionize the market.

Not a great upgrade - but it worked. Fortunately, the Harvesters - were destroyed before all the Aegyptopithecus Zeuxis could be taken. Hominid evolution - on Earth continued. Now they come for those who came next.

No small pitiful handful of samples - like me - taken at great peril - every few centuries. They come for - all humans now. Set in motion processes that will change those left behind after Owners are forced to leave.

Change climate. Change planet itself. Protect from meteors and comets. Neither will be allowed to endanger this Production area. Dinosaur evolution and harvest will never end."

Despite the gore-soaked claws wrapped around her throat, Kelly is feeling more confident with every passing moment. Sensation is rapidly returning to her limbs. It wouldn't be much longer before escape becomes a viable option, that is, if she could keep him talking.

Really, could anything besides the Sun going Nova stop him?

Smith was far too big to pursue her once she's through the door and into the maze of corridors outside. She'd worry about all the noise out there once she crossed that bridge, "Sounds like a bad knockoff of a Hollywood movie plot."

"I don't blame you. I didn't believe it - until I saw some of the - lost worlds and the mountain-size spacecraft the Consumers - had to destroy to stop the spread of the first prototype dinosaurs. The loss of profit was - staggering. My Owner, along with many - others, were drowning in red ink for millions of years!"

It's inconceivable, but true. Despite horrific and dire straits that would make any sane person go catatonic in terror, Kelly is nearly vibrating in a nerdish orgasm, "You've been to others worlds?!"

As if hesitant to answer the question, Mr. Smith takes several seconds to reply, "Yes. I GO - wherever, and as whatever, my - Owner wants. Lost worlds not MY favorite places to - visit."

After an even longer delay, he points his long muzzle at the still morphing policemen and asks a question of his own, "Do you - see those - two over there?"

"Yes."

"They are Product. I am Product. You - are Product. That metal card next to THEM is a purchase - order. Because of their - past behavior and temperament, they - have been deemed worthy OF processing as a mated pair. Soon Harvesters come to - collect and - transport them to worlds - designated for their kind of production units.

They will spend - the REST of their lives perpetuating their new species, in addition to many - other tasks - appropriate to their large - size. Eventually their dead - bodies will be used for - other things."

Her face now fully recovered, Kelly responds with a look of confusion written all over it, "But they're both guys."

"No. When modifications - complete, one will be female - breeder. The other will - be male companion. She will produce - many eggs. He will guard them. Production areas - sorry, planets used as production areas can have many hazards. They - will still be - a couple. Just not happy-happy couple like they - were before. Make - many smart hatchlings. Make great profit for Owners."

"A happy-happy couple like they were before? Do you mean gay?"

"Didn't - I just say that? Sorry, language changes so fast; not that it will matter much - longer anyway."

The shock of the latest revelation puts a deeply personal spin on her situation, "What about me?"

"I have - I have card for you, too. It is under - you're chair. You are reason I came here. Why I allowed myself to be seen - injured - caught. Owner said - you are perfect - Product.

A sharp mind and amendable - disposition will be greatly appreciated by an important Customer after - you change. Bring much profit in future business dealings with this Customer after humans - gone and planet open to very slow but normal space travel.

They come! Harvesters! I save you. Make it - painless. Choose!"

Kelly doesn't need the not-so-gentle squeeze of giant claws around her neck to figure out what 'painless' means. Nor does she question if the EMP proof military grade solid state drive hidden in the ceiling had recorded their every word, or safeguarded the data in the computer outside.

She'd overseen the installation after a computer hacker, working for a foreign government, compromised several ongoing FBI investigations. If her home computer hadn't contained unauthorized files 'borrowed' for her book project, more than a few high profile criminals would have gone free.

Getting dressed down by Donner, in front of the entire review board, for breach of security mandates and threaten with prosecution had been the experience of a lifetime. Receiving a substantial raise and a promotion to top aid on his team the next day kinda made up for it. Having to keep her mouth closed about the entire affair had been a total downer, though.

The bean counters in accounting had protested all the way up the chain of command about the expense. But Donner, scowling like the money was coming out of his own pocket, overrode their complaints to approve what he called 'a monumental waste of money to satisfy a computer nerd's backup fetish'.

The penny pinching spreadsheet jockeys had been so wrong. The device they'd so vehemently opposed might now contain information critical to mankind's continued existence. That is, if anything human survived this mess. It had never crossed Kelly's mind it might one day contain a high definition video log of her grisly death.

The words 'do it' were still forming in her throat when a two inch thick pane of nearly indestructible bullet-proof mirrored glass implodes in absolute silence. Turned instantly into a powdered silica and silver haze, it poses a serious health risk if Tina inhales any of it.

Not an issue.

The teenager is nowhere to be seen in the dim glow of barely functioning emergency lighting. Nor does any trace remain of her personal property or the computer she'd been tasked with operating.

The desk and the file cabinet that once stood beside it are overturned and empty. Looking like violently disturbed dust in a long vacant room, the mirror's talcum-fine remains creates a thick fog that only partly obscures two human-tall spheres of semi-transparent 'something' as they float slowly through the now-empty opening.

Smith opens his eyes and releases Kelly's neck. Advancing towards the pair with the hesitant movements of a second rate animatronics museum display, he stops only a couple feet away. After taking a moment to examine each one, he throws his long neck upwards and lets out a single painfully loud warbling screech.

There is no reply to the ear piercing sound, or, at the very least, none that Kelly can hear. Such is not the case for a horse size dinosaurian creature that almost immediately lowers its head and jumps into a one-sided conversation, "Greetings, Harvesters! How may - I SERVE you?"

His voice rapidly losing any trace of human quality with each new word, Smith does a fair imitation of a stereotypical over enthusiastic sales clerk attempting to ingratiate himself to potential customers with a nearly shouted, "Understood. I WILL be - right back!" and races towards the part-men part T-rexes at the rear of the room.

In his rush to recover the metal card he'd previously discarded, he leans forward and knocks a sizeable flake of paint and plaster off the ceiling with the tip of his long tail, "Ouch! That smarts!"

Spinning around with the metal card held firmly between the teeth at the end of his long muzzle, the same tail hammers the metal table and sends it tumbling across the room as a collection of bent and loosened parts, "AWW! THAT - REALLY, REALLY HURTS! Can't I ever be SENT somewhere that's not full of - tiny ENCLOSED spaces!?"

Moving slowly, as if in great pain and not wishing to inflict any more on his bruised tail, he circles most of the room at a measured pace before dropping the saliva soaked card at the Harvesters' feet, or, more precisely, where their feet would be if they had any, "That's wasn't my - fault! Besides, that artifact couldn't - have BEEN worth much. It has been touched by - WAY too many Products and -"

Before Smith can find some other excuse for the table's destruction, one of the Harvesters leisurely floats away. After rising to ceiling height, it slowly drops and engulfs two former humans that have almost completed their transformation, except for size, into a matching set of nearly identical Tyrannosaurs Rexes.

All three vanish. No out-worldly sound. No retina-searing flash of light. Not even a cigarette size whiff of smoke. They simply aren't there anymore. A miraculous departure a former human had witnessed so often he doesn't even bother turning around to watch, "Is there anything ELSE I might do for you - what's THAT? What Product are you -?"

Having finally learnt his lesson, Smith remains motionless in a room never intended to house a dinosaur of his size - or any dinosaur for that matter. Keeping his legs and torso statue still, he whips his head around more than ninety degrees and locks his gaze in Kelly's direction, "Oh, THAT'S right. I haven't finished - FINAL preparation. Please forgive me. I WILL be done with this Special Product in - a jiffy!"

Closing the gap as nonchalantly as possible, a truly ludicrous sight, Smith moves towards Detective Kelly with his arms fully extended and nearly touching the floor.

Stopping when his feathered chest contacts the back of her chair, he slowly sweeps his head from side to side until ever part of her body is examined, "Special order Product - modifications ARE - proceeding at nominal rate, Harvester. No further intervention - necessary."

Shocked out of her silence by the word 'modifications', Kelly shouts, "What!?" and attempts to lift her still numb body off the chair. Three clawed fingers longer and heavier than any human hand fall gently on each of her shoulders.

Their combined weight is more than sufficient to keep her seated, "Please don't move, Detective Kelly. Try to - keep calm. I will do my best to make - the CHANGE painless. Harvesters will - not tolerate unauthorized INJURY to - Product by Product."

Unable to do more than squirm, Kelly examines her body with barely controllable jerky movements of her head and neck. From what little she can see, it is completely unchanged. Gasping for air, and feeling a growing lack of sensation in the area around her mouth, she asks at a near whisper, "Is this a trick? Are you trying to fool that thing?"

The answer sounds both robotic and very familiar. A young female voice absent of any hint of Smith's mind, or the gap-filled warbling avian tones he speaks in now, comes forth from his toothy jaws.

/ Warning - transmission of deliberately inaccurate data not permitted. Product punishment can result in permanent modifications to central nervous system, and the reduction of information retention and processing capabilities. /

Looking up in open-mouth astonishment, Kelly asks the semi-transparent sphere of black mist floating only a few feet away, "Tina? Is that you?"

After a moment of silence, Smith bows his head until his jaws and saliva dripping teeth are only a few inches from Kelly's ear. As gently as his throat will allow, with isn't much, and with comprehensible emotional undertones, which are only slightly better, he struggles to answer her question, "My deepest sympathies FOR your loss, DEAR - lady. Harvesters are -indivisibly linked to the Owners.

'Tina' is nothing but - A tool now; an - extension of an Owners' WILL in this, or any other, UNIVERSE. It will be - discarded when all tasked programmed into it have - been COMPLETED, or when the Owners - are forced to retreat to their - realm to avoid destruction."

True to her training, Kelly mentally repeats the first rule by which all police and hostage negotiators live, 'Keep them talking! The life you save may be your own!' . Struggling to draw a breath deep enough to speak, she asks, "Wha -t ab -out - me?"

Smith has no problem understanding her slurred and barely audible question. As his voice decays in volume control and diction once more, he answers, "There is nothing - to fear. You, Detective Kelly, are about to - embark on a GLORIOUS adventure. A - VERY long life at the side of a royal personage - commanding VAST wealth - and power.

Your every need, your - ever desire, will be - granted WITHOUT question by - HE - who will cherish and adore you. Rejoice - your transformation will jump - to the NEXT level shortly."

Kelly's rational mind, grasping for straws, throws in the towel and conjures up pure fantasy: Great! Now would be the perfect time for a knight in shining armor riding a white charger to come through that door. Forget that! After what happened to those two guys, I'll be satisfied if a troop of campfire girls armed with sharp sticks came to rescue me!

Her unrealistic hopes are about to be answered. Regrettably, the person running towards the just mentioned door, as if all the demons of Hell are snapping at his heels, doesn't come close to fitting the fanciful heroic mold.

He isn't a knight.

He isn't wearing armor.

And he most definitely isn't riding any kind of horse.

As for the whole 'rescue me' hero and damsel in distress gestalt, that's kinda dicey, too.

Breathing heavily and powered by nothing but adrenaline, a panic stricken security guard wearing a blood stained and torn uniform crashes through the door. His heavy boots skidding to a stop on smooth tiles, the young man spins around and slams it shut. The last remnant of his stamina thoroughly spent, he drops to his knees and moans in pain while pressing a hand holding a large pistol to his bleeding left shoulder.

On the verge of total physical and mental collapse, he begins to mumble to himself as he tries to catch his breath, "Fuck! Fuck! FUCK! It got 'em. Tony! Linda! Samantha! All gone! I couldn't do shit! And now I'm gonna die in this Goddamn pitch black dead end!"

Kelly is having her own breathing problems. With each passing second it is becoming increasingly difficult to fill her lungs. Having lost the ability to draw anything through her completely anesthetized nose, she has been reduced to gulping air into a mouth and throat that are becoming more insensitive and insufficient for the task.

Her hearing is still working just fine, "Pit- ch bl - ack?"

The room was far from that. The emergency lighting had brightened considerably since it'd initially turned on. Except for those areas outside of her restricted field of view, the room was certainly only marginally lit but it hardly fell into the category of fully dark.

"WHO SAID THAT?!"

Staggering to his feet, the security guard waves his gun in her general direction while demonstrably unable to see beyond his nose, "Damn those security lights! They're barely glowing! Wait - my keys!"

Moaning and gritting his teeth, he reopens his shoulder wound when he drives his non-weapon holding hand deep into a front pocket and extracts a set of jingling keys. Wondering why he'd need the tiny penlight attached to the key ring, Kelly is caught completely by surprise when he clicks it on.

Two screams instantly compete for top billing in the room.

Feeling like red-hot roofing nails had been hammered into her eyes; Kelly tries to close unresponsive eyelids while letting out a high pitched gurgling whistle in lieu of a human shriek of unbearable agony.

No competition. The guard wins it by a mile.

His shout, "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" followed by an even higher pitched cry more suitable to a Hollywood scream queen, rattles the room as he keeps the flashlight beam pointed at Kelly's face. Struggling against imminent physical and mental collapse, he is slowly lifting the heavy weapon in his other hand when the door behind him evaporates.

Leaving nothing behind but a slight scent of cheap varnished pine veneer, the door and part of the cinderblock wall holding it up disappear without a trace. The circular opening left behind is momentarily occupied by an equally circular transparent entity Kelly now knew were called, Harvesters.

There wasn't time for introductions.

Before the unnamed security guard can swing his weapon around to confront the new threat, a black tentacle-like appendage reaches out and wraps around him. His scream of defiance, or terror, it's hard to tell which, is cut off almost instantly. Only a single "FUCK YOU!" escapes his lips as he's reeled in and vanishes without a trace.

Still reeling from the slowing abating pain in her eyes, Kelly struggles to ask, "Y -OU Ki _lled HI -M!"

Once again the dinosaur standing motionlessly by her side disagrees, "No, dear lady. Death is - always a loss of Product and PROFIT to be avoided whenever possible. This particular - Product's DEATH would be particularly intolerable; a grievous waste of THE great - potential he just displayed. He will be - RECAST by the Owners - for their benefit or for SALE to a future Customer - look closely. Here HE comes."

Returning in a motion far gentler than his departure, the security guard is deposited prone on the floor by the reappearance of an insubstantial semi-transparent black tentacle. As it vanishes once again, the changes foretold are readily apparent.

The guard who almost shot her is struggling to lift thirteen feet and six hundred pounds plus of solid muscle on four thick quadruped limbs ending in massive claws.

Appearing much like the misbegotten offspring of a one night stand between a radiation-mutated iguana and a crocodilian marathon runner on steroids, the former guard, from two foot long massive toothy skull to elongated muscular tail, is covered in large armored bony scutes and thick scaly pebble-textured gray-green hide.

In other words, and without a doubt, probably the worst candidate for inclusion in a petting zoo nature has ever created.

After several failed attempts success is achieved. The shorter clawed front limbs lift the thick torso high enough for the longer hind legs to balance both ends. With his undersides only a little over two feet off the floor, he tucks both forelimbs tightly underneath and charges with enormous toothy jaws agape at the first non-dinosaurian his widely spaced and deep-set eyes see.

Kelly.

Thinking, What does this guy have against me?! Kelly reflectively lifts both arms in terror and watches as they flail uncontrollably in front of her face.

She can't decide which shocks her more. The fact her body and the chair she's sitting on are about to be perforated by dozens of teeth the width of railroad spikes, or that her arms are covered in tiny lights and didn't appear to have a single bone in them.

Since her projected remaining lifespan is measurable in tiny fractions of a second, she compensates for her inability to decide by screaming her head off.

She doesn't make a sound.

And, as far as she can tell, she isn't even breathing.

Smith is having no trouble expressing his thoughts or emotions, "Excellent! He's - PERFECT! Please - take the Product away."

Only inches away from closing his widely spread saliva dripping jaws around Kelly's face, head, shoulders, and parts of upper torso, the once-human turned prehistoric reptilian horror is engulfed by the same entity that performed the transformation and vanishes with it.

After a quick check, Smith lowers his own toothy jaws and relays his findings, "No damage, Susan - do you mind if I call YOU Susan?"

Not bothering to wait for a reply, no surprise, he keeps talking, "That that was - a close one! I was assigned a Postosuchus - kirkpatricki security - CONSULTANT once. She - could keep a crowd OF Product entertained for days telling - stories ABOUT all the different - worlds where she HAS worked and nested.

Everyone knows how - hair-triggered they CAN be if they detect an intruder WHILE on - duty, but that's the first TIME I've seen it. No wonder Customers are willing to - pay a premium for their service as skilled guards, or for - just SOME hatchlings if that's all they can afford."

Looking down and noticing her continued distress - the aftermath of a horrendous near-death experience does tend to linger - Smith squeezes Kelly gently on the shoulders and says, "The danger has passed, my - dear. You can - stop shouting now!"

Despite being unable to draw even a hint of breath, Kelly goes through the motions in her mind and yells, "OF COURSE I'M SHOUTING! THAT THING ALMOST ATE ME!"

There's a point where a police officer's ability to use training, common sense, reason, and logic to survive a dire situation comes to an end. For many, far too many, an ineffective response and death comes next.

Kelly just got mad.

Clearly demonstrating the reason Donner had chosen her despite a crowded field of more qualified senior competitors, Kelly isn't even close to giving up, "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE TALKING TO?!"

Smith lets go of Kelly's shoulders and walks carefully around the chair.

Unable to manipulate fixed dinosaurian facial features for emotive display, he lowers his head to her eyelevel and pantomimes sticking a clawed digit into each ear-hole, "It's TRUE. You do indeed - have every RIGHT to be upset, but - please signal A little slower and quieter. The Harvester is TRANSLATING what you're doing, but all that high-speed yelling - in my head is giving ME a migraine!"

Kelly's protests grow even louder, and, surprisingly, personal.

Feeling his jaws tense in anticipation of an imminent retaliatory strike, Smith is forced to take action. As her continued silent screaming comes perilously close to triggering an externally conditioned defensive reaction Kelly wouldn't survive, he reaches down and delicately lifts her right arm between two scaly digits.

"I'M GOING TO PLUCK YOU LIKE A CHICKEN WHEN - WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME!"

If a casual observer judges human anatomy to being equal to what a diner might encounter while eating calamari in a seafood restaurant, the word 'arm' is totally appropriate.

Otherwise, and for the sake accuracy, the slippery boneless slime-covered sucker-bearing tubular and deeply reddish hued object Smith is holding up is called a tentacle. Kelly now has eight. Two very long ones, like the one the human turned dinosaur had picked off the floor, and a ring of six far shorter ones circling what little remains of her human neck and head.

Trying to avoid a renewed stream of painfully loud complaints, Smith jumps in before the Harvester can start translating what the oscillating waves of bioluminescent lights crisscrossing Kelly's rapidly transforming body are saying, "Almost done! Right - on specs AND you didn't - feel a thing! How's that FOR - Product service?!"

Kelly is nearing full mental collapse. Everything she'd witnessed since Smith removed his handcuffs has been an impossible assault upon reason and her deeply held faith in what constitutes reality - or, at the very least, what she once perceived that word to mean.

This was worse.

To be perfectly honest, her job sucked.

Good pay but it still blew chunks.

A police officer is no different than any other professional charged with confronting the evil hidden within society on a daily basis. No matter how responsible and dedicated that person might be, witnessing humanity at its darkest would be impossible without the armor provided by a simple philosophy: At least it wasn't me.

For the very first time, in a manner she could never have foreseen or even have contemplated, it - was - her. Getting killed in any of a myriad of ways on duty would be a piece of cake, and infinitely preferable, to what she was experiencing at this very moment.

Unable to take a deep calming breath, or any breath for that matter, Kelly frantically scans her memory for any loophole that might get her out of his mess and comes up empty. After a long hard look at what Smith was holding in his claws, a bullet or knife in the back from a spaced out crack head would be an ideal ending.

Misinterpreting her shocked silence as compliance to his request, Smith drops the tentacle and flicks his claws to remove the fishy smelling slime coating them, "Thank you. It's - bad enough WHEN my Owner yells at me; getting SCREAMED at by a Harvester - from only two feet away is orders OF magnitude worse. It felt like my - BRAIN was going to melt!"

Kelly stares back without saying a word.

Not that she has a choice.

A hard parrot-like black beak, connected to nothing even remotely similar to lungs, takes up roughly a third of her face, while two widely spaced lidless eyes larger than tennis balls account for most for what's left.

As Smith watches intently, everything else - ears, eyebrows, cheekbones, forehead, neck, hair - vanishes into the column of rubbery cadaver grey flesh rising from, and taking the place of, her shoulders.

Right on schedule.

Thinking I'd better wrap this up before she faints and slides off that - too late!, Smith takes a quick step back as Kelly's body undergoes its final major transition and slips off the chair, and out of a large portions of her slime-soaked and disintegrating clothing.

Fortunately, she is uninjured by the short fall. Unfortunately, without the support of salt water, she is also totally incapable of any movement beyond a slow undulating twitching of her lengthening tentacles and lower body.

Both conditions stem from a simple fact: her fully transformed gelatinous, and rapidly lengthening body, doesn't have a single bone in it.

Mindful of the lethal damage even a glancing touch of his sharp claws might inflict, Smith recovers the tattered remains of Kelly's custom-tailored jacket and drapes it over her midsection. Or more precisely, were it once was before her torso and legs merged together seamlessly into a streamlined torpedo-shaped mass of extremely pliable gray flesh.

Fully aware there's nothing even remotely risqué left to be seen, at least for someone who's not a cephalopod; he can't resist a purely human impulse to protect another Product's privacy and dignity whenever possible.

His dinosaurian side is having its own issues.

The scent of fresh seafood is making him drool uncontrollably.

Thinking Time for a lunch break! Besides, I hate being around when a newly reassigned Product wakes up screaming., Smith extends a heavily clawed foot under Kelly's vacant chair and rakes out the metal object he'd deposited there.

Leaving it on the floor, he taps the Smartphone-size object twice with the back of a significantly smaller hand claw. Almost instantly the chaotic jumble of symbols inscribed deeply into the shiny metal surface rearrange into neat rows and columns.

Scanning up and down looking for items pertaining to his duties, and the degree to which he accomplished each, Smith manipulates his claw tip in much the same manner a stylus is used to communicate with a touch screen device.

Chirping and hissing deeply within his feathered chest, Smith mumbles "I'm gone the second all this confounded paperwork is done!", as he sinks a claw tip into solid metal that become as malleable as soft clay with each gentle touch:

Not this again! Another word for redundant is Personnel!

No way! That Customer is never going to accept an obsolete Product!

Me? Let accounting deal with per diem and travel expenses!

Sorry, not my job.

Neither is that.

Nope, how stupid do they think I am?

I don't lay eggs! Wrong department!

Who wants a refund? Let 'em take that up with the main office!

No! I don't want egg laying reassignment! Stop asking!

What budget allotment? Are you joking? That's my Owner's job!

Isn't there a single Product in shipping who know how to read a spec sheet? I was sent to procure a sentient Architeuthis sanctipauli, the southern giant squid with an extended lifespan and repetitive egg producing capability.

There's nothing in the paperwork about a stupid normal Architeuthis martensi, the North Pacific giant squid that'll croak after a single clutch of only a few thousand! Piss off this Customer at your own peril, morons!

Smith's inner dialogue is momentarily interrupted when all the symbols on the mirror-bright surface vanish. A series of high definition DNA helix sequences take their place along with the rotating image of a dinosaur Smith knew intimately, himself.

Darn those popup ads! Seriously, my Owner will never pay for all that! I practically rattle when I walk now. If I absorb another genotype without a full upgrade I'll turn into a pile of grey goo!

Wait. My Owner forwarded that ad to me? Procurement wants to send me, where? A rush order? The Sales Product assigned to that sector got eaten by a - Holly Molly! Now it all makes sense. But I've never been there. And I hate being a quadruped!

Annoyed by the waste of time, Smith rushes to finish the remaining items.

After a quick read-through to verify he hasn't left anything undone, he rests a claw sideways on the bottom. With the same near-instantaneous speed they left, all the original symbols return and he announces out loud, "All DONE! She's - READY for transport."

The Harvester doesn't move towards the unconscious and still-growing squid stretched out on the floor, or metal card Smith is pointing a red lipstick stained claw at.

/ Inaccurate input. Verify data entry authorization. /

Clearly upset by the unexpected response, Smith turns and moves to within inches of the Harvester's floating semi-transparent 'body?' and asks, "WHAT - now?"

/ Inaccurate input. Verify data entry authorization. /

Hissing loudly, Smith replies "Do you really - want me to - waste energy returning TO a 'human compatible' - FORM? Big deal, so I didn't technically - DOWNLOAD the invoice. WHAT difference - does it make?"

/ Inaccurate input. Verify data entry authorization. /

"I'm the only - Product posted to this LOCATION! You must have my - base state ON file!

/ Data entry authorization updated. /

"It took you long enough!"

/ Inaccurate input. Product is not alone. Human presence detected. /

Smith swings his head around and stares at Detective Donner. Donner, in turn, stares back. Still seated on the floor and fighting to recover control of his body, Smith knows from long experience it will be quite some time before he can stand let alone escape.

"Look - he - is not on MY list. Leave him for - ANOTHER Harvester. If you don't transport - this Special Product down TO the Mariana's Trench - soon, she is going to - DIE. No matter how smart or fertile, the Customer has no USE - for a forty foot long rotting squid!"

/ Inaccurate inputs. Count of two. /

/ First error: Special Product in no danger. This Harvester will maintain oxygenation levels and organ function within acceptable parameters until transport and delivery. /

/ Second error: Incomplete work order detected. /

"Him?"

/ Affirmative. /

"Why?"

/ Incomplete work order. /

Grumbling in annoyance, which in Smith's case sounds remarkable close to what could be expected if a large lizard got an irate cockatoo stuck in its throat; he turns away from the Harvester and heads in Detective Donner's direction.

Donner has his own problems. An angry looking dinosaur - is there any other kind? - is marching towards him with enormous outstretched claws aimed at his crotch and the metal object resting upon it.

After a quick mental review of the police procedures handbook, and coming up short for any viable response, Donner closes his eyes and prepares for the worst pain a man can ever experience. Or more correctly stated, only marginally more severe than a few minutes prior when the aforementioned metal object impacted his gonads with the perceived force of a refrigerator-size meteor.

Unwilling to give the monster the satisfaction of hearing him whimper, Donner grits his teeth as two heavy clawed feet approach and stop beside him. Anticipating an end filled with unimaginable agony, he is shocked when scale-covered talons gently open his coat and take out his wallet.

Thinking If I somehow survive this mess, how do I file a report saying I was pick-pocketed by a dinosaur?!, Detective Donner looks up to witness said dinosaur chirp-hissing softly as it closely examines his ID in one claw, and the metal card in the other.

"IS your middle - NAME really Millhouse, Lance?"

Releasing a breath hadn't realized he was holding, Donner barely manages to squeak a tortured, "Yeah!" out of a bone-dry throat.

"This IS - very odd. I didn't submit - THIS request! How do you know my - WIFE? Wait, you couldn't. Vicky doesn't travel. HARVESTER!"

/ Awaiting input /

"Why is Product Victoria - SMITH'S name and designation on THIS new work order?"

/ Product Victoria Smith, mate of Product John Smith, submitted request parameters. Request granted by Product John Smith's Owner. Bonus expended /

"Who's - BONUS?"

/ Product John Smith. Balance zero /

"SHE blew MY whole damned - BONUS - on him?!"

/ Affirmative /

"What the HELL - FOR?!"

/ Product Lance Millhouse Donner in proximity of Product John Smith. Product Lance Millhouse Donner fits request parameters submitted by Product Victoria Smith. Product John Smith enforced to reassign Product Lance Millhouse Donner per supplied specifications and transport to Production area inhabited by Product Victoria Smith /

"There has to be SOMETHING more - than that!"

/ *& (# (&^ $ 2j2ue8 3j8347h^ /

"I don't understand. What does - all - THAT mean?"

/ Translating: 404 File not found. /

"I should know better. I'll CHECK the specs myself when I'm done -"

Before Smith can finish the question, the ceiling light fixture flickers to life for an instant and does dark again. After repeating the same act three more times in quick succession, the bulb stays on and very slowly starts to glow brighter.

/ ALERT! PREPARE FOR IMMEADIATE TRANSPORT! /

"What's happening - HARVESTER?!"

/ Quantum state variance stabilizing. Emergency evacuation in progress / Owners attempting departure, all Products report to nearest Harvester for transport. /

"DAMN! Harvester, how much - TIME - do we have left?!"

/ Owners - time expired. Annihilation ongoing - Update: complete /

/ Harvesters - Quantum state dissonance reaching critical levels /

/ Departure window - maximum two hundred and sixty-three seconds /

Mimicking a human gesture of absolute astonishment his 'face' is no longer able to express, Smith's tooth-lined lower jaw drops almost straight down and he shouts, "Why are YOU - still here! Go - collect some humans! This IS a - DISASTER! We've barely STARTED reassigning - THIS place. Get out of here and - MAKE some profit why you still can!"

/ Special Product retrieval instructions in effect. Awaiting input /

"There's no TIME for this crap! Transport - THE squid and come back for us! GO - GO - GO! I don't WANT - to get stuck on Earth!"

Smith bolts towards his still standing briefcase. Before he's two steps away from his point of departure, the Harvester engulfs the nearly one-ton unconscious cephalopod and vanishes. After wrapping the talons of one clawed hand around the decoratively Scrimshawed and carved Allosaurus tooth handle, he turns to find something, or rather someone, out of place.

In all the excitement Donner had put his escape plan into effect while Smith, apparently suffering a panic attack, was distracted.

Not liking the implications behind the overheard "come back for us", and desiring to get away from an overly talkative feathered dinosaurian freak show before it became a reality, Donner fought against unresponsive muscles to stand. After several exhausting attempts he's finally able to get his numb body upright and promptly falls face down on the floor.

"AWWWW - FUCK!"

Apparently it wasn't as unfeeling as he'd thought.

Not one to be deterred by a possibly broken nose, Donner's quickly revised escape plan manages to get him several body-lengths closer to the door on hands and knees. That is, until his slow forward progress is brought to a sudden halt by an enormous weight crashing down on his spine, "Going somewhere - ARE we?"

As if to emphasize the casually intoned question, the needle-sharp tip of the largest claw on the scaled foot holding him down gently pricks the meatiest part of his left buttock, "URGH!"

"Don't complain - YOU - big baby! I haven't - walked around enough since I reformatted to - dull them yet! If I had, you'd really have something - to scream ABOUT!"

Anyone else - anyone with an iota of live-and-let-live sentimentality in their makeup, that is - would've reflected on their present precarious circumstances and kept sensibly silent. Nothing even remotely like that crosses Detective Donner's mind, "IF I HAD MY GUN AND I'D SHOW YOU WHO'S A BIG BABY!'

"Look at him! Aggression, rage, and - BRAVERY - all wrapped up in a neat little package! It's downright cute. I'm beginning to SEE why Vicky - WANTS - someone like you around."

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO KELLY?!"

"Just because circumstances HAVE - changed doesn't release me from my obligations to Owner AND Customer. I sent her where - she belongs - to whom she belongs. Down to a sunless underwater realm - where she will fulfill her function for - MANY years at the service of a Customer who - RULES - over a vast powerful kingdom.

"BRING HER BACK!"

"That's impossible. By now she is FLOATING comfortably within - the tentacles of her sleeping Customer. And when Cthulu awakens, whenever that is, Kelly - will be an utterly devoted - companion who'll continually provide THE countless squid EGGS that - are his favorite - breakfast food. And perform other duties WHEN -"

Once again, without fanfare or pyrotechnics, the Harvester instantly reappears in the exact same spot from which it had vanished.

/ Special Product delivered and accepted /

/ Quantum state dissonance accelerating /

/ Departure time recalculated and revised /

/ Departure window - maximum twelve seconds /

/ Awaiting input /

"No more time - for questions, Lance. Please fasten - your seatbelt and RETURN your - tray table to its FULL upright and LOCKED position!"

Reaching down, Smith grabs the metal card off the floor with one claw, and hooks several talons around and through Donner's suit collar with the other, "I've got OUR - boarding pass. We are - leaving!"

Dragging a verbally abusive Detective Donner across a floor littered with lost feathers, scattered papers, and bent furniture parts like an overstuffed suitcase, the former human turned feathered dinosaurian theropod waves the metal card at the waiting Harvester and yells, "GET US - OUT OF HERE!"

An instant later the room is empty but for the sounds of a city awakening from one nightmare to the next. Racing emergency vehicles fill the streets in growing numbers as greatly diminished police and emergency assistance departments attempt to restore order and aid the injured.

Many of the shouts of panic and horror penetrating the walls come from nonhuman throats.

# # #

Never knowing when a television camera crew might follow his every move, Detective Donner takes great care to protect his upwardly mobile career path from a frugal nature almost by reflex.

Today had been an exemplary case in point.

When the urgent call came to interrogate the highest priority suspect he'd likely ever encounter, a suspect possibly involved in a plot to attack Washington, DC with a nuclear device, Donner knew exactly what to do.

He went home.

He swiftly dons his recently dry-cleaned, but never worn, Joseph Abboud custom-tailored limited edition Bradford vested olive and khaki Houndstooth slim fit suit, and an equally unworn pair of Gucci custom fit black leather lace-up shoes.

Already nearing fifteen hundred dollars, he keeps going with a Ralph Lauren white dress shirt, a Forzieri red silk tie, a Brooks Brother dress belt with a sterling engine-turned plaque buckle, a stylish Cartier Santos wristwatch, and a set of Harrods 18k gold cufflinks adorned with his initials.

The nine thousand mark far behind in the rear-view mirror, he deems himself fit for the evening news and runs to the waiting patrol car for the quick trip to the FBI building where his arrival is anxiously awaited.

The clammy feel of something thick, smelly, and semi-warm soaking through all of it is the first sensation he experiences upon recovering consciousness.

Thinking Why am I floating on my back in a mud puddle? Donner looks up, with bleary eyes that refuse to focus. Far overhead huge birds soar in leisurely circles against a lemon-yellow sky. Their stately turns are backlit by the eye-searing radiance of two small side-by-side bluish-white Suns.

Shouldn't the sky be blue?

Birds the size of Cessna's? With bat wings?

That's one Sun too many. And what's with that weird color -?"

His lightheaded musings are interrupted by a strained and near-shouted, "Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! I - needed THAT! It felt LIKE I'd - been holding that IN since THE Mesozoic!"

Sitting up and turning his head to the side, Donner watches Smith rise from behind a small cluster of bushes twenty or thirty feet away and walk towards him, "The Harvester DIDN'T - last long enough to bring us DOWN gently. Sorry about - THE rough landing. How are YOU feeling, Lance?"

Still too befuddled to answer the question properly, the response falls into a classic pattern repeated by many upon awakening in an unknown place, "Where am I?"

"Home, more - or LESS. We've still got a little - ways to go from where the Harvester DROPPED us. And I wouldn't complain, at least you landed on something soft. My tail - STILL hurts!"

Groggy and close to fading back into a stupor, Donner lies back down in the comfortable mud and struggles to organize his thoughts into a coherent reply. He fails miserably.

"Hail a CAB - for yourself. I'll phone for a patrol car - back to the city when - I sober up."

Literal to a fault, as always, Smith spends little time looking for less than truthful and straight to the point interpretations behind anything he hears, "Sorry, Lance. This is a Production area - Production planet for Product like me.

No roads. No - cabs. No planes. No artificial structures. No - technology of any KIND allowed. Out of - bounds except for Harvesters and authorized Consumer spacecraft. Owners can't afford - to MAKE the same mistake twice."

"Go away!"

"I can't DO - that. I AM Product. You - are Product. Owner won't be HAPPY if I leave and - something eats you. This is YOUR new home, and wasting inventory is - a BAD business practice. My Owner would not approve - that is, if my Owner still - exists."

Without another word, Smith carefully drops a clawed foot atop Donner's chest and presses down gently until Donner vanishes beneath the mud. He reappears a couple seconds later sitting up and sputtering. And, in case there's any question about his fully awake mental state, let it be known he was more than a little angry, too.

"WHERE'S MY FUCKING GUN?!"

John Smith, the ever-helpful salesman, sales-dinosaur (?), points his long muzzle slightly to the left of the two small bright stars.

"It's - around two hundred AND seventy-one light years in THAT direction. That's how - far my Owner TOLD me this Production area is - from Earth. Oh, and WORD to the wise, you might want - to get out of there. The Protoceratops that DUG that mud wallow is - coming back."

Dinosaur facial features generally fall into two distinct categories: carnivores and herbivores. Even a passing glance at a toothy fossilized T-Rex or Allosaurus skull will quickly make most museum visitors grateful they're long gone.

The dinosaurs they preyed upon, as a rule, span the narrow spectrum between goofy and goofier. The frilled, horned, and beaked head staring angrily at Detective Donner from fifty or sixty feet away easily falls into the latter camp.

Looking like a pudgy grey-green four hundred pound semi-bipedal lizard with delusions of dinosaur-hood, its seven foot long body barely reaches the five foot mark when standing precariously erect on two hind legs.

Terrifying? Not in the slightest.

Angry? Of that there is no doubt.

Clearly agitated by Donner's presence, it zombie-stumbles forward on two short hind limbs snapping its wide-spread beak with each step. Advancing at a slow steady rigid pace, it cough-hisses loudly to confirm its displeasure.

"They bite - Lance. Trust ME. It's a very - hard bite, too."

Struggling to climb out of the slippery bathtub deep hole, Donner yells, "Tell it to go away!"

"It WOULDN'T do any - GOOD. The - thinking part of his BRAIN IS smaller than - two joints of your little finger. Protoceratops are little - MORE than food with AN attitude for Products - living here."

"DO IT THEN! EAT IT!"

With several long strings of drool hang from his jaws, Smith replies, "I really WISH I - could. I'm starving! But THEY'RE on the endangered - list right now. Without MY - Owner's permission I CAN'T touch him."

Only part-way out of the roughly yard deep and fifteen foot wide pit, Donner snatches handfuls of damp dirt and throws them at the slow moving dinosaur. Since getting its mud back is the primary motive force behind the animal's fury, the act only results in speeding up its forward progress.

"HOW ABOUT SOME HELP!?"

Smith extends an arm and opens a triad of heavily clawed fingers almost under Donner's nose, "Do you REALLY - want me to grab YOU with - these?"

"SCARE IT AWAY!"

Sighing deeply, Smith replies calmly to the unnerved request, "It WON'T work."

"DO IT!"

"Very WELL, don't - say I didn't warn YOU!"

Walking around the pit and towards the Protoceratops far faster than its slow plodding progress, Smith stops only a few yards away. After raising his head fully upright, he stomps his feet, swings his tail, extends his arms with widespread claws, and spins in a circle while hissing loudly through drooling jaws.

The Protoceratops is unimpressed. It doesn't even slow down.

"I told - you. A threat DISPLAY - means nothing to THAT one-thing-at-a-time brain. I'd have to get real close or touch him before he'd - forget ABOUT something TRESPASSING in - his territory."

"DO SOMETHING! GRAB IT, DAMNIT! IT'S GOING TO KILL ME!

"No thank - YOU! Did you forget WHAT - I told you already? They BITE! And it - takes FOREVER for them to let - go, too. But don't worry, this one is FAIRLY old. His beak AND teeth aren't that sharp - anymore. He WILL forget why he's biting - you and leave eventually."

Donner's progress is finally showing positive results. After several unsuccessful attempts, he is halfway out of the slippery mud pit and resting face-down on the lip. Exhausted by the physical effort, his twitching muscles refuse to propel him any further despite the urgency of the situation.

His keen analytical mind is working just fine, though.

"SMITH! GET OVER HERE!"

Sounding much like an impartial observer watching a slow motion bar fight between two near-incapacitated drunks, Smith returns to the pit and stares down at Donner, "Anything I can DO - for you?"

"LOOK UP THERE! WHAT ARE THOSE BIRDS DOING!?"

Standing only inches away from Donner's outstretched arms, Smith points his head skywards, "Those AREN'T birds. That's - A flight of Pterodactyls. THEY circle around like - THAT when they're talking about where TO go fishing next or -"

Smith's inevitable longwinded explanation ends abruptly at this point. Feeling an odd sensation of pressure upon both of his powerful and thickly scaled lower legs; he bends his heavy neck and head downwards to examine the area.

Big mistake.

With both legs bound together by a large sturdy silver buckle and extra-durable double-stitched leather belt, there's no way he can maintain his top-heavy upper body in balance. Squawking like an unlucky crow that'd just fallen within a hungry cat's claws, he topples over into the pit and showers a grinning Detective Donner with a fresh layer of mud.

Standing on the other side the Protoceratops is looking down and wondering where, in its slow-witted way, the large predator came from. After watching the mud-soaked feathered theropod flounder around for a while, a tiny patch of neurons tasked with keeping it out of trouble decides it's time to drop to all fours and relocate to a quieter neighborhood.

That same decision had long ago been made by Donner's far larger, and many orders of magnitude more sophisticated, brain. That is, all except for the 'drop to all fours' part.

Struggling to stand and walk upright, Donner totters away in a direction chosen at random. A born and breed lifelong city dweller, he uses one hand to shade his eyes from the unaccustomed bright sunlight - sunlight (s), and holds his mud-soaked pants up with the other. His only goal is a nearby stand of strange looking trees and the glint of water just beyond them.

Thinking, I paid a hundred and fifty bucks for that belt. Best money I ever spent! his stride grows gradually as both strength and coordination return to near-normal levels.

After several hundred yards of travel, and looking for nothing more than a place to hide, he follows a well-worn path cutting between several large ground-hugging bushes covered in brown and gray leaves. The largest of which, only a fraction of a second after he passes, stands up and grabs him within powerful arms tipped with huge claws.

Before Donner can do more than scream "LET GO!" he's released, pushed to the ground, and smothered beneath an immense weight of warm scales and feathers. From deep beneath what feels like a large overstuffed leather recliner, he can just about hear a regrettably familiar voice calling his name.

"Lance! Where ARE you, Detective - Donner? It's not safe OUT here all alone! Good - afternoon, MY dear! I'm back! Did SOMEONE walk by the nest recently? I was escorting a NEW Product and lost him - THIS ISN'T MY FAULT!"

As if being smothered alive wasn't bad enough, feeling your spine bending to the breaking point as an incredibly heavy object bounces on you and laughs is immeasurably worse, "You look - ridiculous!"

"I KNOW, Vicky. And it - itches like MAD, too."

"HONEY bun? Why do you - smell LIKE, Proto? You didn't - bother him, did YOU?"

"No. This - is his MUD."

"Go to - the river AND get that off, John. You STINK of Proto's pooh!"

After rubbing his mud-caked jaws atop the sitting dinosaur's more modest feathered comb, which elicits an immediate angry growl-squawked response, "Don't DO that! I just - HAD a bath!" Smith chuckles and continues down the same path Donner had been following flinging globs of mud with each swing of his long tail.

Donner, in turn, is having his own problems, "I CAN'T BREATHE!"

"Wait A - little more. He's IS almost into the TREES - okay, come out!"

Feeling as if a small car had just run him over, Donner crawls out when a pair of powerful scaled and clawed legs unfold just high enough for him to escape. The moment he is fully upright, a long muzzle full of sharp teeth are only inches from his face, "What's your - NAME?"

The theropod sits and makes itself comfortable in the shallow depression beneath it. The creature staring at him with twin bright yellow eyes with a terrifyingly fixed predatory gaze is nearly identical to what Smith had turned into, and speaks in a similar broken avian tone and cadence.

The only readily apparent differences are a slight increase in size, and a thick layer of kaki and beige colored feathers that blend in perfectly with their present surroundings.

"Lance - my name is Lance Donner."

"Delighted to MEET you, Lance. PLEASE forgive me. Shaking HANDS - is something we don't much AROUND here." Sitting down and still above eye level

with Donner, the dinosaur mimics closing three stiff digits tipped with large claws around an invisible hand.

I'm - Victoria Smith, BUT you can call me, Vicky. Are - YOU the missing Product my husband WAS looking for?"

"Yeah, I guess that's me."

After a renewed and even more unnerving bout of close examination that lasts nearly a minute, "ARE - you the one Johnny IS supposed to bring back from - home?"

Backing away slowly as if preparing to turn and run, Donner answers, "I - I don't know. Where is home?"

"The Earth - I WAS kidnapped by a - Harvester while backpacking alone IN Montana. Oh, and - BY the way, going down INTO - that dry wash isn't a GREAT idea. They'd never - dare bother PRODUCTS like me, but they would - pounce on YOU in an instant. It'd be a - PRETTY nasty way to go."

Donner's moon-walking slows as he looks over his shoulder in the direction Victoria Smith's claw is pointing, "What's down there?"

"I don't - KNOW what they're called. They - STAND around two feet tall and - hunt in flocks of thirty or more. Ask JOHN, his Owner is into all kinds - of SCIENCE stuff. I've SEEN them mob and - strip a Protoceratops that WANDERED - down there in a couple days. It'd TAKE a lot less with - your thin skin."

Donner stops dead in his tracks, and, in fact, moves swiftly back to his original position, "Ah - thanks?"

"You're - welcome. We Products HAVE - to look out for each other. So, how DO you like your - new home?"

Diplomacy being a necessary, if disliked, skill he'd had to struggle with over his long law enforcement career, Donner tenders a nonjudgmental response, "Looks nice, but I haven't seen much of it frankly. Speaking of which, is there any way off it?"

"I like IT, too. I loved - the outdoors when I WAS human. Not that I have - much choice, NOW. Choice is a WORD Products don't use much. As to getting out OF here, unless - you've got a HARVESTER or Consumer spacecraft in your back pocket, the answer IS no."

Still seeking an avenue of escape, Donner tries to steer the conversation in that direction, "Have you been here long?"

"That's a HARD one to answer. Time - has a FUNNY way of getting messed up when OWNERS are involved. Besides, I HAVE no way to measure it anyway. I'm guessing - YOU haven't looked at YOUR watch lately."

Donner rolls up his muddy sleeve. There's nothing on his wrist but more mud.

"MY WATCH!"

"Owners forbid THE use of any KIND - of technology, or artificial structures here. It's ONLY - recently that they've even LET us use fire - if it comes from a natural source. Otherwise a CONSUMER has to take a Product off world before WE can wear - a watch like my husband's or STACK two rocks atop each other."

"You're married?"

"I was ASSIGNED - to fill that role by HIS Owner. I'm - actually Victoria Smith number seven. The first, THE human one, died - back on Earth. The second was HATCHED here and trained to - assume the role. It never WAS a great match. They were - ONLY together two nesting seasons."

"They separated?"

"She got RIPPED apart. If you walk - towards the setting Suns for a few days, you'll see - the T-Rex barrier. Every so often the hatchlings GET through. The adults - are bad enough, but not even the Owners - can reign in the teenagers."

Thinking back, Donner recalls some of the meaningless babble he'd discounted during Smith's interrogation, "I think I heard something about all that."

"John is AN extremely valuable, but - unstable, custom made human origin Product. He needs a Victoria SMITH in his life. That's WHY his Owner keeps playing - matchmaker.

After Victoria Smith NUMBER two got - recycled - numbers THREE through six got the job. None OF them lasted more - than a few nesting seasons.

Never HAVING been human is a distinct handicap WHEN - egg laying and nesting instincts get in - the way of playing THE role of a dutiful housewife."

Having mindboggling set aside the reality of whom, or more accurately, what he was holding a conversation with, the implications behind the words 'eggs laying' hits Donner in the face like a fist, "Eggs! You - he - lay eggs?"

"No. That's MY job. This planet is a - Products Production site. I'm the PRODUCER. I jumped at the - opportunity TO be John's mate when it was offered. At - least he's courteous enough to help me dig and line a nest after the mating season. Unlike those other - WALKING hard ons!"

Nervously looking around, Donner asks, "There aren't any T-Rexes roaming around right now, are there?"

"No. It's - been a while. You know HOW - teenagers are. They EAT - everything in sight and GO back home. Since then the OWNERS had the barriers reinforced, FOR all the good that'll - DO.

We decided TO - relocate to that mountain RANGE just - after John left. So I - stayed behind to WAIT until he returned. Since rexes have a - hard time DEALING with broken terrain, it will be a QUIETER place for us to live. And it should - ALSO give THE game living around here more time to RECOVER, too."

"What do you mean, game?"

"How else - DO you think we survive looking like THIS? It's not like there's a SUPERMARKET or fast food restaurant on every corner - heck, THERE aren't even any corners! At least we MOVE - around enough to let our food sources recover and protect - them from over predation."

"You talking about that thing that wanted to bite me?"

"Poor LONELY Proto, he's the only Protoceratops LEFT - in this area. If he hadn't BEEN asleep in his mud pit they would've - gotten him, too. That's why I - Uh-oh! Did you happen to hear - my husband saying anything about a PURCHASE order?"

Still looking over his shoulder as if expecting something, or lots of some things, to appear at any moment, "I did, and also heard him complain about a bonus."

In an apparent display of alarm, the comb feathers atop Victoria's head spring straight up, "I'm IN - trouble now!"

Alarmed, Donner turns around in a circle and yells, "WHAT'S COMING?"

"Calm DOWN, Silly. There's - nothing DANGEROUS nearby. Well, except FOR Proto is you GET too close. He crawled UNDER - that bush over there a little while ago. He's KEEPING - an eye on you."

After quickly moving around until the sitting theropod is in-between him and the crouching Protoceratops, Donner asks, "Why's he doing that?"

"It might - BE because you're covered IN his mud. Or it MIGHT be because he's finding - your SCENT attractive."

Donner lifts his mud-coated sleeve and takes a whiff. Buried beneath an overpowering smell of wet soil and decaying plant matter, a potent, and growing steadily stronger, hint of animal musk burns his nose. Hygiene is apparently something Proto doesn't worry much about.

Groaning in disgust, he peels off his mud soaked jacket, dress shirt, and tie. Using his semi-clean cotton t-shirt, Donner vigorously scrubs his face, arms, and chest as best he can. The end results are less than ideal. What once was an expensively maintained tanning-bed complexion is now extremely discolored, blotchy, greenish-brown, and even smellier.

Victoria clamps both claws over the end of her long muzzle, "You - NEED a bath!"

Thinking Great! I offend the sensibilities of a dinosaur!, Donner steps away from his discarded filthy clothing wearing nothing but his muddy pants and shoes. Feeling much better out of their clammy embrace, he enjoys the warmth of the setting Suns on his bare, but deeply stained, upper body.

"I'm guessing a hotel and hot shower are out to the question."

"If you - FIND one, PLEASE let me - know. A beauty parlor WOULD be - nice, too. My feathers are IN desperate - need of a PROFESSIONAL stylist to LOOK their best. Maybe - then my hubby WON'T be so mad at ME."

Thinking back with an attention for detail honed by many years sitting across an interrogation table, Donner recalls their conversation and Victoria Smith's negative reactions during it, "Does this have anything to do with that 'purchase order' seem so worked up about?"

Donner judges the female dinosaur's drawn-out, "No - nothing. I have - no IDEA." as untruthful. A suspicion that grows even deeper as she stops speaking and focuses her attention upon a far distant patch of empty yellow sky.

Thinking, She's lying through her teeth. Her many, many dagger sharp teeth. Donner waits several minutes before asking the most logical follow up question, "And what does this have to do with me?"

A familiar gruff, distorted, and warbling animalistic sounding voice encourages his wife to answer the question, "Go - ahead, MY dear. Tell - THE nice man what - YOU did."

Thinking, HOW DOES SOMETHING THAT FREAKIN' BIG MOVE SO SILENTLY?!" Donner is stopped short in his attempt to turn around when an unbelievably strong grip takes hold of him.

"Don't be shy, MY - love. I've had a really, REALLY bad day. Surely what you NEED - to tell me, tell us, won't make IT any worse, WILL it? We ARE - waiting!"

The wait is unlikely to be a short one.

After a parrot-ish squawk that can either signal fright or embarrassment, Victoria Smith the seventh, a predatory dinosaur easily capable of devouring an average size human adult, bends her long neck and hides her head beneath a feathered arm.

"Please forgive - ME, Detective Donner. It's - my fault. I SHOULD have - anticipated Vicky doing something LIKE this."

Frozen in place, and close to screaming in agony, Donner tries to answer in an accommodating tone as what feels like his entire spine is being crushed within massively powerful talons, "Think nothing of it. I was married once. Little disputes are bound to happen from time to time."

Loosening his grip to a faintly more tolerable level, Smith replies with an undertone of anger still readily apparent in what he says next, "I'm HAPPY you feel - that way, detective. It makes - WHAT I'm required to DO more tolerable, but that still doesn't EXCUSE my wife's - actions. I simply can't ALLOW her to misuse my - point-of-sale terminal!"

With her head still deeply buried beneath her arm, the wife in question screeches loudly, "You SAID - I could do IT!"

"That's NOT - exactly correct, sweetheart. I said, the LOVE of my life, you COULD pick any listed - Protoceratops Product you LIKED from the catalog. You're BOREDOM is not justification for - expending my bonus, my entire BONUS, on a special order neurologically human origin enhanced talking SNACK food!"

Close to writhing in unbearable agony, Donner is unable to follow the conversation. Shouting in both relief and surprise, he loses his balance the moment Smith releases his powerful grim. He barely manages to avoid crashing face first on the rocky ground with both outstretched arms.

Stunned and lying prone, Donner needs to take several deep breaths and organize his thoughts before he can even attempt to stand. Almost immediately he discovers how impossible it is: a great weight is bearing down on his hips and keeping him from rising more than a few inches.

Moments after thinking, Not this again! This is the third time he's stepped on me. Does he get off on this?, Donner is forced to reevaluate the situation.

Smith is nowhere near him.

Neither is his wife.

Standing side by side several yards away, Donner can barely lift his stiff neck high enough to see the middle of their bodies, and a large gray-green and scaly object is blocking much of his lower field of view.

"HE - LOOKS funny!"

"Patience is a VIRTUE, honey bun. I've - got TO sort through BILLIONS of evolutionary-LINES probabilities while - KEEPING his central nervous system intact. It's NOT as easy as - it looks. That's a lot of computation - to DO without guidance FROM my Owner."

"I'VE seen you do IT a lot - faster than that!"

"Good grief, WOMAN! Do you want - me to BLOW a processor?!"

"Rufdu - sfiww - fsigw!"

"Well, hi THERE! You're - AWAKE, detective. Don't worry. YOU will be talking - again SOON enough. Why don't YOU take a little - nap? Product SHUTDOWN level - one."

# # #

After what feels like an eternity, but which is likely no more than a few minutes, Donner is roused from a shallow slumber by loud voices. It takes several tries before he finally manages to open his eyelids. He very quickly discovers how distorted and near useless his vision has become.

Unable to resolve conflicting views seemingly coming from either side of his head into a cohesive whole, he concentrates instead on listening to the two dinosaurs argue. He manages to overhear little before something massive, sopping wet, breathing hard, and smelling like an open sewer, drops on his back with the all the tenderness of a safe falling off a truck.

Thankfully, just fractions of a second after feeling something thick, blunt and insistent poking him repeatedly somewhere in the vicinity of his hips, Donner's central nervous system decides a momentary shut-down for repairs is appropriate and the lights go out once more.

"PROTO! Get lost. OUCH! He bit me, Vicky!"

"Don't JUST stand - there looking SORRY for yourself. Stop HIM before - too late."

"Interesting."

"John? HOW - far DID you get?"

"What's that, honey?"

"Will YOU - please stop ogling what - Proto is DOING and answer the question? HOW - far in the reassignment PROCESS did you GET? Is THAT - Product fully functional?"

"Wow! LOOK - at him go! That's sure - GONNA hurt in the morning!"

"JOHNNY!"

"What do YOU - want?! Can't you - SEE I'm busy?"

"Busy being a - VOYEUR!"

"What DID - you call me, Vicky?"

"It's a nice WAY - of calling someone a pervert, DEAR. Now SEPERATE -them!

"Exactly HOW - am I suppose to DO - that WAS quick! And OFF he goes to - his mud wallow. Talk about - PREDICTABLE."

"Look who's TALKING. We've been - TOGETHER eight mating seasons - and you still COMPLAIN about needing A cigarette afterwards. John, ARE you even listening - to me?"

"Did WATCHING Proto in action - give you any ideas, SEXY?"

"Not a one, HUSBAND mine. I don't CARE - how much you dance around. It's WAY too early for any - of that. Check BACK in the - summer."

"That's WHAT - you always say. YOU tease!"

"Shush!"

"Did you CHANGE your mind, lovely one?"

"I said, shush! Donner is - AWAKE. He's trying - to SAY something!"

"Wha-tt didd yadoo to mee?"

"I couldn't UNDERSTAND - a word. Can you - fix that, John?"

"Give ME a - moment. Let - ME tweak the spinal cord. Go ahead, Let's TRY - that again. Say SOMETHING, Lance."

"WHAT did YOU do TO me?"

Swaying precariously on four legs, with a massive tail still indented by a three-digit grip on one end, and an even heavier horned and beaked head on the other, Detective Lance Millhouse Donner struggles to keep upright without tipping over.

In conflict with a fundamental Protoceratops need to consume any plant in sight, a purely human desire to hurt, severely, the dinosaur pointing a claw at his homely horned head is growing by leaps and bounds.

"How's THAT - Victoria? I'm DONE!"

"PERFECT. How much of - his mind DID you save?

"Do you HAVE - to ask? The WORK order specified - total retention. It really WASN'T that hard. There's no shortage of empty space in THAT - kind of skull to stick a FULL size - brain."

"John?"

"Yes, my LOVE?"

"Stop talking AND - look down! You're about - to be bit!"

"WOW! That - was close! Quick! Tell your Donner to - stop!"

"Ah - stop?"

Donner suddenly finds he's unable to move. The desire to do great harm is definitely there, but he can't even close his wide spread beak.

"Why couldn't YOU do that, Johnny?"

"Because he's YOUR Product, not - mine. When you AGREED to the purchase terms, AND wasted my entire bonus - in the process, thank YOU very much, you failed to mention - ME. I can no more TELL - Donner what to do than I CAN - order Proto around."

"NO training?"

"None required. His intellect IS - intact. All you HAVE to do - is specify what you WANT, and Donner will INTERPRET - the command and try to carry IT out - if he can. Otherwise - FREE will and survival instincts TAKE over."

"Can I TRY - it now, Johnny?

"Be my GUEST. A satisfied CONSUMER is a happy - consumer, as my Owner loved to SAY - all damned day!"

"Cutie pie, PLEASE - wag you tail."

Not even knowing how he's doing it, Donner's large and heavy tail begins to sway slowly from side to side. He can feel all the muscles, tendons, and vertebrae move, but he's powerless to even think of stopping.

"Dearest, Donner isn't - a TOY, and his stomach is empty. There's ONLY so much energy in - an herbivore's body. It must BE continuously - replenished."

"I understand. I'VE - been watching Proto FOR a long time. Okay, HOW - about this? Donner baby - stop. GOOD Protoceratops. Now go OVER to that bush AND eat - all the leaves. It's ONE - of Proto's favorites."

Showing none of his previous clumsiness, Donner walks away on four stout limbs from the tattered remains of his pants and makes a beeline towards the bush Victoria Smith is pointing her muzzle at. His slow unhurried pace gives his wide beaked mouth more than enough time to fill with thick saliva.

Within a half hour of nonstop single-minded grazing, nothing but twigs remain and his stomach is swollen to capacity with many pounds of mashed leaves.

Donner is feeling anything but comfortable. After swallowing what felt like several dozen near tasteless salads, he's reached his limit. Through a beak full of even more drool-soaked leaves, he begs, "No MORE please!

"That's enough, Vicky! Don't overdo it. You don't want to strain that stomach on the first day."

"Okay - STOP eating! Good, now stick around. HOW'S - that, dear?"

Released from the compulsion, Donner folds all four limbs and drops belly down on the ground. Groaning from the weight and volume of poorly masticated vegetation painfully making its way through his innards, he can only imagine the monumental end results when it departs. Until then, any activity more strenuous than passing gas in prodigious quantities was out of the question.

"Like I said, he's YOURS. But he's still PRODUCT. He must be treated WITH respect - and understanding. I don't WANT to hear you've been interfering with DONNER'S programmed and instinctive duties - while I'm away."

"NOT again! You just - got back!"

"I'm SORRY, love. Duty calls. OR - will soon enough. It's only a matter OF time before my Owner returns, or my - contract is BOUGHT out by another. There's at least ONE red-flagged supply-run JOB pending right now."

Clearly distraught, Victoria Smith points her head up and screeches. Smith has no difficulty interpreting the significance of the loud ear-piercing calls, "Honey, SWEETHEART, calm yourself! Don't - cry! It could've been far, FAR worse. It's a miracle I GOT - back from my last trip in one piece, let alone WITH the Product you ordered.

If not we'd BE separated until - a Harvester could retrieve me. That is, IN the unlikely event I survived local CONDITIONS long enough to permit it. Pretty soon limited travel will reopen from this side, BUT I'd RATHER not - go back home until MATTERS settle down between unguided Products and Non-Products.

"Dear? What - ARE you doing?"

Smith is several feet away scrapping the ground with his feet. With each swipe of his talons, the groove he's cutting into the dry soil gets deeper and wider.

"It will be GETTING - dark soon. Donner will need SOMEWHERE - to rest tonight. Go GATHER some branches to line his BED while I finish digging. We'll be LEAVING early tomorrow morning. I want to SEE you there safe - before I have to leave - leave - leave - leave -"

"John - Johnny? Are - you all RIGHT?!"

John Smith couldn't be more immobile unless frozen in a block of ice, or stuffed and mounted for display in a natural history museum. Holding up a claw besides open jaws as if making a point during a conversation, he keeps repeating the word 'leave' with both bright red eyes obscured by partly closed nictitating membranes.

Expecting his painfully over-stuffed gut to explode at any moment, Donner struggles with two innate items of urgent interest demanding instant resolution. Primarily, where to find something suitable to eat after something else, a lot of something else, eventually departs? And, secondarily, how to get enough control over this stupid damned body to achieve the first?

In simplest terms, he's helpless.

Trapped and growing steadily angrier - that's his human part - in a primitive prehistoric body displaying all the grace of a razor-back wild boar, the speed of an arthritic turtle, the reaction time of a garden slug, and the attractiveness of the homeliest gator to have ever crawled on solid ground, his list of possible solutions is a blank page.

And gravity is most definitely not his friend.

Apparently forgotten for the moment, it had taken the former detective, and former human, three strenuous attempts before he finally succeeds in getting his swollen bulk off the ground. A small triumph that immediately became meaningless upon discovering how difficult it is to get two pairs of unequal length limbs to move smoothly in concert.

About the only ray of sunlight in the entire situation involves his eyes. From one moment to the next, his disorienting doubled vision had gone full IMAX. Except for a scaly gray-green muzzle / beak filling much of his nearsighted forward view, with a stiff tail and recently mentioned gut taking up a good portion of the rear, his vision arc easily approached two hundred and forty degrees.

Other than that, his remaining senses were unquestionably muted and less precise in comparison to what he was accustomed to, and chief amongst them was his sense of touch - or, more accurately put, not having much of it.

From the tip of the heavy tail hanging from his butt, to the sharp end of an even heavier head, a thick and incredibly dense hide muffles any sensation coming from outside.

One glaring exception continues to puzzle Donner; a bewildering numbness and slowly fading feeling combining pleasure and violation, coming from somewhere in the general vicinity of his new hips.

Casting away any thoughts greater than a basic animal flight from danger, Donner points his beak at a small group of delicious looking trees in the distance and concentrates on moving each clawed foot and attached limb in turn.

The Boston marathon record holder has nothing to fear.

Right front, up move drop. Left rear, up move drop. Left front, up move drop. Right rear, up move drop. Stop. Catch breath.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

He'd make better progress rolling on his side.

"Where are YOU going, Sweetie? Come - to MAMA! It's not SAFE out there!"

Feeling like a full body cast had suddenly fallen off, Donner spins around and races - at a Protoceratops' best possible speed, hardly something to write home about - towards the tall theropod beckoning him back from less than a hundred feet away with a waved claw.

Only stopping when he's standing beside a scaled leg, and a foot armed with weapon-grade talons, does he let exhaustion force him belly-down onto the ground. Unable to move anything other than his lungs and eyes, he watches Victoria Smith repeatedly attempt to rouse her motionless mate, "Dear? Are - you IN there? Please SAY something besides -'leave'!"

Thinking, Now he shuts up! Why is she so luck? Donner evaluates the situation and all possible escape scenarios. It takes only a few seconds to calculate how royally screwed he is, and how likely that state will become permanent if John Smith croaks.

Continuing a train of thought that's close to jumping the tracks, Not only does that feathered screwball have the mojo to play God with evolution and reality, he can also hail Uber for a cab trip, of sorts, back home. If that annoying chatterbox goes belly up, I'll be stuck in this Jurassic nightmare for life. Or, for however long it takes before a hungry local resident rips me apart and chows down on the pieces!

Human or not, Donner needs more information, "What IS wrong WITH him?"

Reaching down, Victoria Smith absentmindedly runs the claw tips of her right 'hand?' up and down Donner's back as if to comfort him. He enjoys it immensely. Anything not covered in a thick impervious scaled hide like his would be bleeding to death before the third pass.

"I - Don't know, SWEET pea. I'VE seen John get - LIKE this before. There's no telling when he'll boot up. I call IT his 'blue SCREEN of death' when - I want to NEEDLE him."

Ignoring the condescending nicknames, Donner asks, "You KNOW about Computers?"

"I was 'collected', SO to speak, around TWENTY - or TWENTY-FIVE years ago. Not all Products LIVING - here can TALK or even think. And far fewer can understand or speak English, but we DO our best to keep TRACK - of things. Compared to JOHN, I just got - here."

Not willing to give up, Donner continues his impromptu 'interrogation' just in case her hubby kicks the bucket, "How ABOUT you? CAN you DO what HE does, TOO?"

Donner's hind leg, the left, vibrates wildly when potentially lethal claws tickle the scales around the bony knobs atop his neck frill.

"Would I still LOOK - like this or even BE here if I could? I'm a PRODUCT that lays eggs and raises hatchlings for sale. Taking care - of JOHN needs keeps something worse FROM happening to me. Remember, no - matter WHAT you might think now, there's ALWAYS something worse."

Reminding Donner of his present condition, as if he could conceivably put it aside, is probably the least calming thing Victoria Smith could have done. His escape hopes dashed beyond any hope of repair, his anger initiates, and quickly surpasses, the purely instinctive threat display Proto had expressed when his territory was invaded.

Pounding the ground with all four clawed paws, he throws his heavy head for side to side and cough-growls a lengthy stream of x-rated invective. Snapping his beak at empty air, he advances with murder in mind towards the silent and statue-still comatose dinosaur.

Just moments away from sinking his beak, and many flat herbivorous teeth, into dinosaurian flesh, he's brought up short by an apologetic sounding, "I WON'T stop you, but - you're making a mistake, MR. Donner. If - anyone DESERVES to be bitten for what HAPPENED to you, it's - me."

Swinging his hindquarters around until she comes into view, Donner finds Victoria Smith looking out at the empty landscape surrounding them and seated in the same shallow depression in which he'd first encountered her.

One long feathered arm is fully extended at a height well within range of his beak, "It WAS my selfishness that brought - you here, THE same selfishness that SPECIFIED how someone like you was - to be reassigned and for WHAT purpose."

On the verge of total mental collapse leading to madness, Donner sputters out a single word question, "WHY?!"

"I was sleeping a FEW weeks ago - what we CALL weeks here - when THE Harvester came to deliver JOHN's briefcase. I overheard THEM discussing a major - breach about to open on Earth, and how the Owners were going to slash n' BURN the entire planet before - reformatting whatever's LEFT."

Almost vibrating in anger, Donner almost explodes, "Couldn't YOU stop HIM?!"

"You don't UNDERSTAND. John is a very - rare, special Product. I am JUST Product. My brain would FRY if I ever had - direct contact WITH an Owner or refused to obey their will. Survival is obedience. Refusal is unheard of UNLESS - the Product wants their brain erase or -"

After a moment of silence, Victoria leaves the thought unfinished and continues talking, "I lost everything WHEN - I WAS kidnapped and they did this to ME. My parents, MY fiancé, my brothers, even - myself for a time.

I was completely ALONE when my - sanity returned; just another sentient Product - surrounded by WHO knows how many OTHER - egg-laying machines on this world. The only bright spot was learning how incredibly rare abductions like mine are. Everyone back home was safe."

Swinging her head around, Victoria stares down at Donner and asks, "I'm guessing he TOLD you how - badly the Owners SCREWED up the first dinosaur Product LINES, and finished off - with HIS dinosaurs-run-Consumer-worlds-utopia spiel."

His anger temporarily spent, Donner replies, "HOW do YOU know THAT?"

"WHO do you think - he PRACTICES his sales pitches on?"

"Are YOU saying IT'S a LIE?"

"No. JOHN never lies. His Owner - FORBIDS untruths. All Owners DO. THEY say it's bad - FOR business. What he didn't tell you - is JUST good marketing."

Having nothing better to do for the rest of his life, and fully aware he's about to be on the receiving end of a long-winded background story, Donner drops to his uncomfortably full stomach.

After reflexively lifting his tail and releasing a blast of intestinal gas even a Hazmat team wouldn't want to deal with, he encourages Victoria to continue in the best 'interrogator-voice' his new throat and rudimentary larynx can manage, "Tell ME more."

"What Johnny told you about Consumers is true. They have - indeed been fighting each other SINCE like forever. When humans MAKE - war, the losing side eventually DOES a cost benefit analysis AND calls it quits.

Consumers DON'T - think that way. They'd rather BURN down the entire galaxy - AND go extinct if that's WHAT it takes to destroy their ENEMIES. And many CONSUMERS - were preparing to do just THAT when dinosaurs became available.

OWNERS were just - neutral small time side-players EKING out a little profit providing their SERVICES to anyone willing to do business WITH them. All those war PLANS - went out the window when THE Owners introduced fully FUNCTIONAL sentient work-capable dinosaurs TO the Consumer marketplace."

After an explosive belch that fills the immediate vicinity with the stench of digesting vegetation, Donner breaks in with, "He told me all about that, and what happened next."

"All of - IT? That's unusual. He must LIKE you. John - rarely mentions HOW after nearly fifty million years of profitable sales disaster struck. How an unknown Consumer TRIED - to hack the dinosaur BEHAVIORAL database DNA firmware rather THAN pay for a service call.

The unauthorized ATTEMPT caused a chain - reaction. Whole planets WORTH of hardworking dinosaurs - put down their tools and USED every weapon in sight to ATTACK their Consumers. They eventually - commandeered ENTIRE space fleets and went ON a galaxy-wide rampage."

After another loud, and ever fouler, belch, "Smith SAID they WERE wiped OUT."

Consumer SPACESHIPS - are fast, difficult to track, AND exceptionally well armed. EVEN the smallest could - turn the Earth INTO dust many times over. And the PROTOTYPES had the implanted skills and TIME to produce MANY - more upon the planets they colonized AND controlled.

The Milky Way is an ENORMOUS - place to search even by Owner and CONSUMER space travel standards. EVEN with the far larger - numbers of dinosaur Products THAT didn't malfunction fighting on their behalf, it still took MILLIONS of years to destroy them ALL, and it took MANY more for the Consumers to - RECOVER from their attacks. It WAS a mess."

Looking forward to another good scratching, and too embarrassed to ask, Donner responds with Victoria's rehashed history lesson with a disinterested sounding, "So?"

"That's THE lie, Mr. Donner. There was - no hack. The prototypes DID exactly what the Owners - engineered them TO do. In computer TERMS, a virus HIDDEN in their DNA went off right - on schedule."

Closing his eyes, Donner ruminates upon what he'd just heard, along with a more literal rumination ongoing within his swollen middle. It doesn't take his sharp mind long to put the pieces together, "That FIGURES. Owners DON'T strike ME as THE altruistic TYPE. WHAT kind OF backstabbing SCAM were THEY trying TO pull?"

As if to reward him for the correct answer, Victoria Smith starts scratching vigorously behind Donner's wide frill, and where his beak and throat meet, with her sharp talons. The overwhelming near-sensual sensation almost makes him pass out, "You're smart, just as I wanted you to be."

Donner, for once, can't answer. He can barely breathe. Thinking clearly is equally out of the question. And unless Victoria stops soon, his rumbling stomach is going to have an 'accident' they're both going to regret.

"If the Consumers FINALLY managed to kill - each other off, the Owners were IN danger of losing their CUSTOMER base. Without trade FOR items only Consumer technology can supply, the - Owners WOULD eventually die out. No matter THE cost, they could NOT allow that to - happen."

By this point, Donner had pretty much figured out what comes next. But there was no chance he'd cut this conversation short before Victoria Smith's talons gave his itchy tail and spine a good work over, "And YOU know ALL this - HOW?"

"Just LIKE - what's going on right now, John's Owner frequently DOWNLOADS information and tweaks his formatting. He's BOUND to talk in his sleep - for a while afterwards. It's NOT that hard to figure - what the Owners are UP to."

Thinking Duh! Smith talks in his sleep. Like that's a surprise!, Donner bends his wide flank in the female dinosaur's direction hoping she'd get the hint. Grumbling under his breath when she doesn't, he asks instead, "What DOES this HAVE to DO with THE Earth, and More importantly, ME?!"

"Oh, that's an EASY - one. The vast MAJORITY of dinosaur product lines on THE market today were uplifted from the ORIGINAL harvest. And - it shows. They're VERY - intelligent in their own way, and CERTAINLY hard working, but they suffer from a - significant lack of creativity, independent thought AND emotional range. Modern Earth-based Products, like Johnny and I, are IN great demand for this REASON but - way beyond rare and SUPER expensive, so -"

Donner interrupts and finishes the thought, "- IF the Owners GET THEIR hands OF seven BILLION humans, THEY could FLOOD the MARKET with CHEAPER high-end PRODUCT and MAKE a FORTUNE - LET GO OF ME!"

Turnabout is fair play. After a fair imitation of a girlish squeal of joy, and a shouted "YOU FIGURED IT - OUT ON THE FIRST TRY!" that interrupts what Donner was going to say next, two incredibly strong feathered arms ending in huge sharp talons grab and turn him over.

Flailing his legs wildly and grunting incoherently in terror, the former human detective can do nothing as a primordial inner voice screams 'kiss your tail goodbye!' when lengthy jaws filled with sharp teeth drop towards his relatively unarmored belly.

Instead of the eminently predictable hideously painful tearing of thick scaled skin, and the even more agonizing forceful removal of internal organs, his swollen belly is subjected to what can only be described as love-bites.

Still being held upside down, Donner can do nothing but squirm when she stops nibbling and rubs her jaws in the direction of his neck and head. Stopping only when the tip of her muzzle is besides an ear-hole, Victoria contradicts what she'd just claimed at a low whisper, "Don't TALK. Keep acting LIKE you're - enjoying this."

Thinking, Acting? She has to be kidding! Donner is in Protoceratops heaven. For some unknown reason his entire nervous system was afire and craving more. Something about all the talon scratching and nibbles had set off every pleasurable sensation his new body was capable of experiencing.

"What I JUST - told you is a LIE. Consumers WANT to fight. It's in THEIR nature. Soon, maybe in less than a hundred thousand years, they will launch vast armadas of dinosaur Products to wipe OUT - their enemies, and turn the entire GALAXY into a graveyard.

The Owners HAVE no - intention of going extinct now OR ever. Since many SAFEGUARDS were put in place - to keep their last delaying TACTIC from ever working again, they've taken other steps to - ensure their SURVIVAL."

Donner understood every word he'd just heard. On a conscious level the gravity of the situation was clear, even if his role has yet to be revealed. On the other hand, and on a purely basic physical level, the dinosaur holding him down could've been singing the Stars Spangle Banner. He'd listen to anything if the tickling currently driving him to distraction didn't stop.

"The plan WAS - to support ALL Consumers in battle until attrition FORCES them to buy modern humans. That is, after - they're all reformatted INTO version 2.0 dinosaurs like me, OF course.

With human-origin TECHNOLOGY to produce the vast amounts of - transuranium elements THEY need to survive finally under Owner control, they will eventually ORDER us to destroy all - the remaining Consumers. The Earth, the galaxy, and beyond, WILL - be theirs forever."

Struggling to catch his breath and reply coherently, Donner asks in a voice far louder than a whisper, "And YOU learned ALL this BY just OVERHEARING him TALK in HIS - sleep?"

"No. Johnny FORGETS how good - our eyesight IS sometimes. I can't READ the text, but I CAN figure out what - THE icons are doing from quite a DISTANCE away. And I'd - hate to get him IN trouble because - I love to gossip. It's not like I could spill the beans to anyone. The only PART of me that'll ever get off - this PLANET leaves aboard a CONSUMER spacecraft INSIDE a handle-with-care live-cargo crate."

Donner wracks his brain to rationally organize Victoria Smith's lengthy narrative into a coherent whole, and how his transformation and presence on this planet could possibly fit into it.

Failing miserably on both accounts, he expresses the most common question uttered after someone's life has been torn asunder by an upcoming disaster of apocalyptic proportions in typical Lawrence Millhouse Donner fashion, "WHAT the FUCK do YOU expect ME to do ABOUT it?!"

Holding him helplessly upside down with one clawed hand, the once-human dinosaur positions a single curved talon from the other beneath her jaw while keeping her yellow-eyed gaze fixed on the near-featureless savanna, and the horizon-spanning mountain range far in the distance.

She maintains this pose of thoughtful musing for roughly a minute before replying to the question, "Nothing, I thought you MIGHT - like to know what's going ON. No one, Product or HUMAN, could conceivably stand IN - the way of what the Owners have PLANNED, OR - how the Consumers will likely retaliate. Our TOTAL insignificance is - the best chance we'll have to SURVIVE what's coming.

When I HEARD the Earth was - about to get harvested, I took THE opportunity to order a Product I COULD - talk to. I get so BORED surrounded by mindless ANIMALS - or other Products that are scared to death EVERY time John's around. Besides, it's NOT - as if I did it BEHIND his back. He said I could have a PET."

Donner manages to yell "A - pet?!" only once in a stunned tone before the metronomic repetition of the word 'leave' suddenly stops, and bright red eyes turn in their direction.

Before he can say it again, most likely much louder and liberally seasoned with a wide variety of shockingly disturbing profanity, Victoria Smith commands, "Stop - speaking." and renews her enthusiastic belly-tickling and nibbling.

"All updates DONE Victoria, and I'm glad to see you've - BEEN having fun with your purchase while I was away."

"Oh YES, dear. Thank - YOU so much! I couldn't BE happier."

"That's GOOD. Honey, where IS - my briefcase?

With both clawed hands occupied keeping an upended, squirming, silent, and very angry, Protoceratops under control, Victoria Smith points her muzzle straight down, "I'm sitting on it."

Smith vigorously bobs his head twice and reaches under his wife, "Watch where you put those - CLAWS, dear!"

Chuckling under his breath, Smith wipes the briefcase clean of dust with a few swipes of coarse arm feathers and checks the exterior for damage. Finding none, he twists the locking clasp and closely examines each item inside. Overjoyed to discover the hard landing hadn't harmed his beloved possessions, he snaps it shut and announces, "That's a RELIEF!"

"Do you - REALLY have to leave SO soon, John?"

"I TRULY - must, Vicky. A Harvester is ALREADY on the way TO pick me up. Environmental issues HAVE - resulted in massive live game supply shortfalls at SEVERAL - major Production sites. THIS one - included.

I've BEEN assigned a JUST-discovered territory filled - with otherwise USELESS - live consumables. I will PROBABLY be stuck - organizing the collection efforts UNTIL the supply - is exhausted, or the - promised emergency FOOD rations ARRIVE on the next Consumer spaceship convoy."

Absent-mindedly rubbing Donner's stomach, the female dinosaur closes her eyes and hangs her head. Looking as heartbroken as a large incredibly dangerous dinosaurian apex-predator can, which isn't much, she begs, "Please! Take ME - with you!"

"If only I COULD, dearest. You'd probably LOVE - the place. By all accounts it's a VERY interesting and colorful - planet. But the reformat REQUIRED for the trip - will be difficult EVEN with my experience, and I'd NEVER - get an Owner's permission anyway. You're JUST too valuable. I'm TRULY sorry."

"I HAD - to ask."

"I know. VICKY?"

"Yes - John?"

"You should KNOW - by now what you're doing ISN'T a good idea. If you KEEP a Protoceratops upside down too - long, especially one WITH a full stomach, it's GOING to make a mess SOONER or later. Do you want - all of that to HAPPEN - right next to your sleeping nest?"

"WOW! I - FORGOT!"

Showing little sign of muscular effort, Donner's four hundred pounds plus mass is spun around and held belly-down on the ground. Surprised by the lack of foulmouthed complaints coming from his wide-spread beak and rapidly fluttering tongue, Smith asks, "Donner is being unusually - QUIET. Do you have anything to DO with that?"

"I had to PRESS the mute - button, dear."

"I thoroughly UNDERSTAND - and approve. I will TRY to bring back - a bar of soap FOR the next time Donner - OH!"

"What? Is THE Harvester here - already?"

"No, I just DECODED an update notice. Congratulations! DONNER'S - special reformat has been registered and approved for use. Would - YOU like the honor of renaming YOUR new pet?"

"CAN I - please?"

"By all MEANS, honey. Just - be quick. I will be LEAVING any moment."

"Okay, how ABOUT something easy TO remember like - Dona?"

Lifting a claw to eye height, Smith taps empty air as if inputting data into an indivisible keypad. After announcing, "All done. Dona IT is.", he looks back towards his wife just as an inky black semitransparent cloud materializes around him, "And off - I go. Be good NOW, Vicky. And take care of Proto - and Dona while I'm gone. They make a REALLY cute couple."

With both clawed hands occupied trying to keep a squirming homicidally angry female Protoceratops under control, Victoria nods her head and cheerfully responds with, "They really DO. Come - back soon. And TAKE care of yourself, dear."

"I always - DO. And I'll try to - get back before Dona's first CLUTCH hatches, too."

With that John Smith, the overly talkative salesman, dinosaur, and purveyor of antiquities and oddities, vanishes for places unknown. He leaves behind a wife who truly loves him, and a Protoceratops that will be counting the minutes until his return.

To bite him.

Very, very hard.

Fin.

# # #

Epilogue: A Purveyor of Antiquities and Oddities

Disaster struck without warning.

From all corners of the world they came, survivors fleeing from an unknown enemy. Leaving behind unexplainably depopulated cities, towns and village, those who somehow escaped a similar fate took to road, sea, and air.

The once-tranquil inhabitants of those population centers scatter in mindless panic, or in far smaller numbers, flee towards the only security they'd ever known: powerful beneficent rulers and their magnificent shining mountain-side capital.

A capital that now stands as empty and silent as all the rest.

Carried away from their prayed-for last refuge by a fancifully designed train, a small group of adults and their children pass countless vacant farmhouses, barns, orchards and fields. Their only goal is a moment of safety, and the opportunity to seek aid at a nearby hamlet.

They will find neither.

The streets are as empty as the skies above. No voices, no music, no joyous sounds of the young at play. All the baroquely crafted and brightly painted government buildings, businesses, and homes are vacant. Every store shelf, table, and countertop overflows with undisturbed merchandise and freshly prepared food set out to attract customers who don't exist.

Driven towards the edge of insanity, the adults grab whatever they can in preparation of resuming their desperate flight. Any unlocked nearby store and house is raided for anything that might give them, and their crying children, a moment more of life.

One of those children, unsupervised for the first time in her short existence, takes the opportunity to explore and hunts for something far more important than basic supplies.

Her checks bulging with pilfered cupcakes and candies, she moves down an empty street and enters a place none of the adults had deemed important in this time of imminent peril: a library. Having nothing but happy memories about a similar place near her now-abandoned home, she seeks out a copy of her favorite picture book.

Moving towards the children's section, the child is surprised to see an adult standing behind a table piled high with books and scrolls in a large poorly-lit gloomy side room. With the fearless curious nature of the very young, her four tiny hooves barely make a sound as she trots upon hardwood floors towards a middle-aged deep blue-hued stallion.

Lisping heavily, she asks, "What ya doing?"

Clumsily lifting, and dropping, a small pile of scrolls, the stallion stares at his front hooves as if seeing them for the first time, "This is impossible! And I thought eating with chopsticks was hard!"

Not happy with being ignored, the young filly lifts her head to almost table-height on hoof-tips and repeats the same question at a much higher volume, "WHAT YA DOING?!" spitting out candy fragments and pastry crumbs.

Surprised by the interruption, the stallion drops to all fours and looks over the over-burdened table at the empty room, "Who - who said that?!"

"I'm down here!"

Catching a glimpse of a rapidly swishing lavender-hued tail, the stallion walks slowing, and with great care, around the table and looks down, "I see. You really are down there. And who might you be?"

The child's lisp worsening in her haste to reply, the little filly proudly identifies herself as, "Lavender Rose! I'm three years old!"

Smiling broadly, the stallion bows deeply, "Pleased to meet you, Lavender Rose. Do you live here? I thought I was all alone by now."

Always excited to meet someone new, the little filly replies in a childish rush of words, "I live on an farm with my brothers and sisters - they went away yesterday - Mommy said it would be best to take a train trip while Daddy went looking for them - Do you think Daddy will find them soon?"

Smiling broadly enough to show a sparkling set of white flat herbivore teeth, the blue-hued stallion replies, "I wouldn't worry too much about that. You have my word, they will all be found in time."

Calmed by the comforting assurance of an adult, the filly fails to notice the disparity between the wide toothy smile on the stallion's lips, and the blood red eyes staring dispassionately down at her.

Much happier now, she bounces up and down in an attempt to get a better look at what's on the table. Too small to satisfy her boundless curiosity, she repeats her original question, "What ya doing?"

"My job is done, so I was packing my things to leave."

Returning to the just mentioned task, the stallion laboriously picks up individual scrolls with his teeth and drops them into an open, but very strange looking, pair of saddlebags besides a half-dozen ivory unicorn horns caked in dried blood.

Doing it far slower than even the tiny filly standing by his flank could accomplish, it takes a great deal of concentration and strenuous effort before he finally slams them shut, "Ah - gross! Picking things up like that is awful. I'm never going to get the taste of parchment out of my mouth!"

Lavender Rose has rarely gone more than a few minutes without asking an adult a question in the entire length of her short existence. Today is no exception, "Would you like to go meet my Mom?"

"I'd love to. Where is she?"

"The train station with everyone else, I guess. Mom said we'd be leaving in an hour, but it's hard to tell time since the Sun and Moon stopped moving."

Leaving the overfilled saddlebags where they lay, the stallion waves a single hoof to encourage Lavender Rose to lead the way, "I'll be right behind you."

She bolts ahead and stops just outside the library's main door, "Sorry!"

From several feet away, the stallion looks down and asks, "What for?"

"I forgot. Mommy says I shouldn't talk or go with strangers!"

Smiling broadly again, the stallion put the filly's discomfort to rest, "That's easy enough to fix. My name is Mr. Hoof Smith."

Her childish logic satisfied, Lavender Rose smiles and resumes her high speed gallop towards the nearby train station. Trotting much more carefully and slowly, the stallion moves outside into the bright sunlight.

Indistinct blue on blue fur cutie marks on his flanks become more apparent with each step: an equine skull sitting atop a pile of fleshless and splintered bones.

The end

This is about as plain-vanilla as I can go writing a sci-fi / horror / transformation plot. My first inclination was to include the almost mandatory over-the-top violence and gore that goes so readily with this type of story.

However, as submission to a transformation-themed writers group called TSA-Talk was a far off possibility when I began; I held myself in check and traveled a more humorous (boring) route that downplayed most imagery and situations containing gratuitous mental / spiritual / physical torture. (And almost all naughty words, too)

The Old Ones must be so disappointed in me.

Deep Sigh :/

CG


End file.
